"L  I  B  RAHY 

OF   THE 
UNIVERSITY 
Of    ILLINOIS 

PRESENTED  BY 

Mrs.   A.   H.   Danieli 

1940 


824 
C)9h 
\893 


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1. 1  IS  R I 

ON 


Heroes,  Hero-Worship 

AMD 

The  Heroic  in  History 

BY 

Thomas  Carlyle 

ARTIST'S  EDITION.    WITH  NUMEROUS  NEW ILLUSTRA  TIONS 

BY 

Corwin   Knapp  Linson  and  A.  Gunn 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK    A.    STOKES   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


I'll 


Coprrtsbt,  IS 93, 
:Kg  jfreDericfc  B.  5tcfcc»  Company 


8  24 

"\893    CONTENTS. 


LECTURE    I. 

\^.  PAGE 

A        The  Hero  as  Divinity.    Odin.    Paganism:  Scandinavian 

Mythology r 

LECTURE   II. 
The  Hero  as  Prophet.     Mahomet:  Islam 47 

LECTURE   III. 
The  Hero  as  Poet.   -Dante;  Shakspeare 87 

LECTURE   IV. 
<  The   Hero  as   Priest.     Luther;    Reformation:    Knox; 

Puritanism I28 

LECTURE    V. 
The   Hero  as   Man   of    Letters.      Johnson,   Rousseau, 

Burns l7l 

i 

LECTURE  VI. 

The    Hero    as    King.      Cromwell,   Napoleon:    Modern 

Revolutionism 2,7 

4^  

^ Nummary  and  Index 271,283 

b  s; 


I  092992 


LIBRARY 
OF  THE  . 

q^lTY  OF  ILLINOIS 


ON    HEROES,   HERO-WORSHIP,   AND    THE 
HEROIC    IN    HISTORY. 


LECTURE   L 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.    ODIN.    PAGANISM:   SCANDINAVIAN 
MYTHOLOGY. 

{Tuesday,  5th  May,  1840.] 

WE  have  undertaken  to  discourse  here  for  a  little  on 
Great  Men,  their  manner  of  appearance  in  our  world's 
business,  how  they  have  shaped  themselves  in  the  world's 
history,  what  ideas  men  formed  of  them,  what  work  they  did ; 
— on  Heroes,  namely,  and  on  their  reception  and  perform- 
ance; what  I  call  Hero-worship  and  the  Heroic  m  human 
affairs.  Too  evidently  this  is  a  large  topic  ;  deserving  quite 
other  treatment  than  we  can  expect  to  give  it  at  present. 
A  large  topic ;  indeed,  an  illimitable  one ;  wide  as  Universal 
History  itself.  For,  as  I  take  it,  Universal  History,  the 
history  of  what  man  has  accomplished  in  this  world,  is 
at  bottom  the  History  of  the  Great  Men  who  have  worked 
here.  They  were  the  leaders  of  men,  these  great  ones ;  the 
modellers,  patterns,  and  in  a  wide  sense  creators,  of  what- 
soever the  general  mass  of  men  contrived  to  do  or  to  attain  ; 
all  things  that  we  see  standing  accomplished  in  the  world 
are  properly  the  outer  ;naterial    result,  the    practical  reali- 


2  LECTURES   ON  HEROES. 

zation  and  embodiment,  of  Thoughts  that  dwell  in  the  Great 
Men  sent  into  the  world  :  the  soul  of  the  whole  world's 
history,  it  may  justly  be  considered,  were  the  history  of 
these.  Too  clearly  it  is  a  topic  we  shall  do  no  justice  to  in 
this  place ! 

One  comfort  is,  that  Great  Men,  taken  up  in  any  way,  are 
profitable  company.  We  cannot  look,  however  imperfectly, 
upon  a  great  man,  without  gaining  something  by  him.  He 
is  the  living  light-fountain,  which  it  is  good  and  pleasant  to 
be  near.  The  light  which  enlightens,  which  has  enlightened 
the  darkness  of  the  world ;  and  this  not  as  a  kindled  lamp 
only,  but  rather  as  a  natural  luminary  shining  by  the  gift  of 
Heaven;  a  flowing  light-fountain,  as  I  say,  of  native  original 
insight,  of  manhood  and  heroic  nobleness ;  —  fn  whose 
radiance  all  souls  feel  that  it  is  well  with  them.  On  any 
terms  whatsoever,  you  will  not  grudge  to  wander  in  such 
neighborhood  for  a  while.  These  Six  classes  of  Heroes, 
chosen  out  of  widely  distant  countries  and  epochs,  and  in 
mere  external  figure  differing  altogether,  ought,  if  we  look 
faithfully  at  them,  to  illustrate  several  things  for  us.  Could 
we  see  them  well,  we  should  get  some  glimpses  into  the  very 
marrow  of  the  world's  history.  How  happy,  could  I  but,  in 
any  measure,  in  such  times  as  these,  make  manifest  to  you 
the  meanings  of  Heroism  ;  the  divine  relation  (for  1  may 
well  call  it  such)  which  in  all  times  unites  a  Great  Man  to 
other  men  ;  and  thus,  as  it  were,  not  exhaust  my  subject, 
but  so  much  as  break  ground  on  it !  At  all  events,  I  must 
make  the  attempt. 

It  is  well  said,  in  every  sense,  that  a  man's  religion  is  the 
chief  fact  with  regard  to  him.  A  man's,  or  a  nation  of 
men's.  By  religion  I  do  not  mean  here  the  church-creed 
which  he  professes,  the  articles  of  faith  which  he  will  sign, 


PAGAN  EMPIRE  OF  FORCE  DISPLACED  BY  A  NOBLER  SUPREMACY."— Page  3. 


OF  THE 

IF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  3 

and,  in  words  or  otherwise,  assert ;  not  this  wholly,  in  many 
cases  not  this  at  all.  We  see  men  of  all  kinds  of  professed 
creeds  attain  to  almost  all  degrees  of  worth  or  vvorthless- 
ness  under  each  or  any  of  them.  This  is  not  what  I  call 
religion,  this  profession  and  assertion  ;  which  is  often  only 
a  profession  and  assertion  from  the  outworks  of  the  man, 
from  the  mere  argumentative  region  of  him,  if  even  so  deep 
as  that.  But  the  thing  a  man  does  practically  believe  (and 
this  is  often  enough  without  asserting  it  even  to  himself, 
much  less  to  others);  the  thing  a  man  does  practically  lay 
to  heart,  and  know  for  certain,  concerning  his  vital  relations 
to  this  mysterious  Universe,  and  his  duty  and  destiny  there, 
that  is  in  all  cases  the  primary  thing  for  him,  and  creatively 
determines  all  the  rest.  That  is  his  religion;  or,  it  may 
be,  his  mere  scepticism  and  no-religion :  the  manner  it  is 
in  which  he  feels  himself  to  be  spiritually  related  to  the 
Unseen  World  or  No- World ;  and  I  say,  if  you  tell  me  what 
that  is,  you  tell  me  to  a  very  great  extent  what  the  man  is, 
what  the  kind  of  things  he  will  do  is.  Of  a  man  or  of  a 
nation  we  inquire,  therefore,  first  of  all,  What  religion  they 
had?  Was  it  Heathenism,  —  plurality  of  gods,  mere  sensu- 
ous representation  of  this  Mystery  of  Life,  and  for  chief 
recognized  element  therein  Physical  Force  ?  Was  it  Chris- 
tianism  ;  faith  in  an  Invisible,  not  as  real  only,  but  as  the 
only  reality;  Time,  through  every  meanest  moment  of  it, 
resting  on  Eternity ;  Pagan  empire  of  Force  displaced  by  a 
nobler  supremacy,  that  of  Holiness  ?  Was  it  Scepticism, 
uncertainty  and  inquiry  whether  there  was  an  Unseen 
World,  any  Mystery  of  Life  except  a  mad  one ;  —  doubt  as 
to  all  this,  or  perhaps  unbelief  and  flat  denial  ?  Answering 
of  this  question  is  giving  us  the  soul  of  the  history  of  the' 
man  or  nation.  The  thoughts  they  had  were  the  parents  of 
the  actions   they  did ;   their  feelings  were  parents  of  theii 


4  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

thoughts:  it  was  the  unseen  and  spiritual  in  them  that 
determined  the  outward  and  actual ;  —  their  religion,  as  I  say, 
was  the  great  fact  about  them.  In  these  Discourses,  limited 
as  we  are,  it  will  be  good  to  direct  our  survey  chiefly  to  that 
religious  phasis  of  the  matter.  That  once  known  well, 
all  is  known.  We  have  chosen  as  the  first  Hero  In  our 
series,  Odin  the  central  figure  of  Scandinavian  Paganism  ; 
an  emblem  to  us  of  a  most  extensive  province  of  things. 
Let  us  look  for  a  little  at  the  Hero  as  Divinity,  the  oldest 
primary  form  of  Heroism. 

Surely  it  seems  a  very  strange-looking  thing,  this  Pagan- 
ism; almost  inconceivable  to  us  in  these  days.  A  bewilder- 
ing, inextricable  jungle  of  delusions,  confusions,  falsehoods 
and  absurdities,  covering  the  whole  field  of  Life  !  A  thing 
that  fills  us  with  astonishment,  almost,  if  it  were  possible, 
with  incredulity,  —  for  truly  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  that 
sane  men  could  ever  calmly,  with  their  eyes  open,  believe 
and  live  by  such  a  set  of  doctrines.  That  men  should  have 
worshipped  their  poor  fellow-man  as  a  God,  and  not  him  only, 
but  stocks  and  stones,  and  all  manner  of  animate  and  inani- 
mate objects  ;  and  fashioned  for  themselves  such  a  distracted 
chaos  of  hallucinations  by  way  of  Theory  of  the  Universe  : 
all  this  looks  like  an  incredible  fable.  Nevertheless  it  is  a 
clear  fact  that  they  did  it.  Such  hideous  inextricable  jungle 
of  misworships,  misbeliefs,  men,  made  as  we  are,  did  actually 
hold  by,  and  live  at  home  in.  This  is  strange.  Yes,  we  may 
pause  in  sorrow  and  silence  over  the  depths  of  darkness  that 
are  in  man  ;  if  we  rejoice  in  the  heights  of  purer  vision  he 
has  attained  to.  Such  things  were  and  are  in  man  ;  in  all 
men ;  in  us  too. 

Some  speculators  have  a  short  way  of  accounting  for  the 
Pagan  religion  :  mere  quackery,  priestcraft,  and  dupery,  say 
\hey;  no  sane  man  ever  did  believe  it, —  merely  contrived  to 


ODIN. — Page  4. 


LIBRARY 
OF  THE 

OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  5 

persuade  other  men,  not  worthy  of  the  name  of  sane,  to  be- 
lieve it !  It  will  be  often  our  duty  to  protest  against  this  sort 
of  hypothesis  about  men's  doings  and  history ;  and  I  here, 
on  the  very  threshold,  protest  against  it  in  reference  to  Pagan- 
ism, and  to  all  other  isms  by  which  man  has  ever  for  a  length 
of  time  striven  to  walk  in  this  world.  They  have  all  had  a 
truth  in  them,  or  men  would  not  have  taken  them  up. 
Quackery  and  dupery  do  abound ;  in  religions,  above  all  in 
the  more  advanced  decaying  stages  of  religions,  they  have 
fearfully  abounded :  but  quackery  was  never  the  originating 
influence  in  such  things  ;  it  was  not  the  health  and  life  of 
such  things,  but  their  disease,  the  sure  precursor  of  their 
being  about  to  die  !  Let  us  never  forget  this.  It  seems  to 
me  a  most  mournful  hypothesis,  that  of  quackery  giving  birth 
to  any  faith,  even  in  savage  men.  Quackery  gives  birth  to 
nothing ;  gives  death  to  all  things.  We  shall  not  see  into 
the  true  heart  of  any  thing,  if  we  look  merely  at  the  quack- 
eries of  it ;  if  we  do  not  reject  the  quackeries  altogether;  as 
mere  diseases,  corruptions,  with  which  our  and  all  men's 
sole  duty  is  to  have  done  with  them,  to  sweep  them  out  of 
our  thoughts  as  out  of  our  practice.  Man  everywhere  is  the 
born  enemy  of  lies.  I  find  Grand  Lamaism  itself  to  have  a 
kind  of  truth  in  it.  Read  the  candid,  clear-sighted,  rather  scep- 
tical Mr.  Turner's  Account  of  his  Embassy  to  that  country, 
and  see.  They  have  their  belief,  these  poor  Thibet  people, 
that  Providence  sends  clown  always  an  Incarnation  of  Himself 
into  every  generation.  At  bottom  some  belief  in  a  kind  of 
Pope  !  At  bottom  still  better,  belief  that  there  is  a  Greatest 
Man ;  that  he  is  discoverable  ;  that,  once  discovered,  we  ought 
to  treat  him  with  an  obedience  which  knows  no  bounds  !  This 
is  the  truth  of  Grand  Lamaism;  the  "discoverability"  is 
the  only  error  here.  The  Thibet  priests  have  methods  of 
their  own  of  discovering  what  Man  is  Greatest,  fit  to  be 


6  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

supreme  over  them.  Bad  methods :  but  are  they  so  much 
worse  than  our  methods,  —  of  understanding  him  to  be  always 
the  eldest-born  of  a  certain  genealogy  ?     Alas,  it  is  a  difficult 

thing  to  find  good  methods  for ! We  shall  begin  to  have  a 

chance  of  understanding  Paganism,  when  we  first  admit  that 
to  its  followers  it  was,  at  one  time,  earnestly  true.  Let  us 
consider  it  very  certain  that  men  did  believe  in  Paganism ; 
men  with  open  eyes,  sound  senses,  men  made  altogether  like 
ourselves  ;  that  we,  had  we  been  there,  should  have  believed 
in  it.     Ask  now,  What  Paganism  could  have  been  ? 

Another  theory,  somewhat  more  respectable,  attributes  such 
things  to  Allegory.  It  was  a  play  of  poetic  minds,  say  these 
theorists ;  a  shadowing  forth,  in  allegorical  fable,  in  personi- 
fication and  visual  form,  of  what  such  poetic  minds  had 
known  and  felt  of  this  Universe.  Which  agrees,  add  they, 
with  a  primary  law  of  human  nature,  still  everywhere  observ- 
ably at  work,  though  in  less  important  things,  That  what  a 
man  feels  intensely,  he  struggles  to  speak  out  of  him,  to  see 
represented  before  him  in  visual  shape,  and  as  if  with  a  kind 
of  life  and  historical  reality  in  it.  Now  doubtless  there  is  such 
a  law,  and  it  is  one  of  the  deepest  in  human  nature  ;  neither 
need  we  doubt  that  it  did  operate  fundamentally  in  this  busi- 
ness. The  hypothesis  which  ascribes  Paganism  wholly  or 
mostly  to  this  agency,  I  call  a  little  more  respectable  ;  but 
I  cannot  yet  call  it  the  true  hypothesis.  Think,  would  we 
believe,  and  take  with  us  as  our  life-guidance,  an  allegory, 
a  poetic  sport  ?  Not  sport  but  earnest  is  what  we  should 
require.  It  is  a  most  earnest  thing  to  be  alive  in  this  world  ; 
to  die  is  not  sport  for  a  man.  Man's  life  never  was  a  sport  to 
him ;  it  was  a  stern  reality,  altogether  a  serious  matter  to  be 
alive  ! 

I  find,  therefore,  that  though  these  Allegory  theorists  are 
on  the  way  towards  truth  in  this  matter,  they  have  not  reached 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  J 

it  either.  Pagan  Religion  is  indeed  an  Allegory,  a  Symbol 
of  what  men  felt  and  knew  about  the  Universe ;  and  all  Re 
ligions  are  symbols  of  that,  altering  always  as  that  alters  ; 
but  it  seems  to  me  a  radical  perversion,  and  even  ///version, 
of  the  business,  to  put  that  forward  as  the  origin  and  moving 
cause,  when  it  was  rather  the  result  and  termination.  To 
get  beautiful  allegories,  a  perfect  poetic  symbol,  was  not  the 
want  of  men ;  but  to  know  what  they  were  to  believe  about 
this  Universe,  what  course  they  were  to  steer  in  it ;  what,  in 
this  mysterious  Life  of  theirs,  they  had  to  hope  and  to  fear, 
to  do  and  to  forbear  doing.  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  is  an 
Allegory,  and  a  beautiful,  just  and  serious  one  :  but  consider 
whether  Bunyan's  Allegory  could  have  preceded  the  Faith 
it  symbolizes  !  The  Faith  had  to  be  already  there,  standing 
believed  by  everybody ;  —  of  which  the  Allegory  could  then 
become  a  shadow ;  and,  with  all  its  seriousness,  we  may  say 
a  sportful  shadow,  a  mere  play  of  the  Fancy,  in  comparison 
with  that  awful  Fact  and  scientific  certainty  which  it  poeti- 
cally strives  to  emblem.  The  Allegory  is  the  product  of  the 
certainty,  not  the  producer  of  it;  not  in  Bunyan's  nor  in  any 
other  case.  For  Paganism,  therefore,  we  have  still  to  in- 
quire, Whence  came  that  scientific  certainty,  the  parent  of 
such  a  bewildered  heap  of  allegories,  errors  and  confusions  ? 
How  was  it,  what  was  it  ? 

Surely  it  were  a  foolish  attempt  to  pretend  "  explaining," 
in  this  place,  or  in  any  place,  such  a  phenomenon  as  that 
far-distant  distracted  cloudy  imbroglio  of  Paganism,  —  more 
like  a  cloudfield  than  a  distant  continent  of  firm  land  and 
facts  !  It  is  no  longer  a  reality,  yet  it  was  one.  We  ought 
to  understand  that  this  seeming  cloudfield  was  once  a  reality; 
that  not  poetic  allegory,  least  of  all  that  dupery  and  decep- 
tion, was  the  origin  of  it.  Men,  I  say,  never  did  believe  idle 
songs,  never  risked  their  soul's  life  on  allegories :  men  in  all 


8  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

times,  especially  in  early  earnest  times,  have  had  an  instinct 
for  detecting  quacks,  for  detesting  quacks.  Let  us  try  if, 
leaving  out  both  the  quack  theory  and  the  allegory  one,  and 
listening  with  affectionate  attention  to  that  far-off  confused 
rumor  of  the  Pagan  ages,  we  cannot  ascertain  so  much  as 
this  at  least,  That  there  was  a  kind  of  fact  at  the  heart  of 
them ;  that  they  too  were  not  mendacious  and  distracted, 
but  in  their  own  poor  way  true  and  sane  ! 

You  remember  that  fancy  of  Plato's,  of  a  man  who  had 
grown  to  maturity  in  some  dark  distance,  and  was  brought 
on  a  sudden  into  the  upper  air  to  see  the  sun  rise.  What 
would  his  wonder  be,  his  rapt  astonishment,  at  the  sight  we 
daily  witness  with  indifference  !  With  the  free  open  sense 
of  a  child,  yet  with  the  ripe  faculty  of  a  man,  his  whole  heart 
would  be  kindled  by  that  sight,  he  would  discern  it  well  to 
be  Godlike,  his  soul  would  fall  down  in  worship  before  it. 
Now,  just  such  a  childlike  greatness  was  in  the  primitive 
nations.  The  first  Pagan  Thinker  among  rude  men,  the  first 
man  that  began  to  think,  was  precisely  this  child-man  of 
Plato's.  Simple,  open  as  a  child,  yet  with  the  depth  and 
strength  of  a  man.  Nature  had  as  yet  no  name  to  him  ;  he 
had  not  yet  united  under  a  name  the  infinite  variety  of  sights, 
sounds,  shapes  and  motions,  which  we  now  collectively  name 
Universe,  Nature,  or  the  like,  —  and  so  with  a  name  dismiss 
it  from  us.  To  the  wild  deep-hearted  man  all  was  yet  new, 
not  veiled  under  names  or  formulas  ;  it  stood  naked,  flashing 
in  on  him  there,  beautiful,  awful,  unspeakable.  Nature  was 
to  this  man,  what  to  the  Thinker  and  Prophet  it  forever  is, 
preternatural.  This  green  flowery  rock-built  earth,  the  trees, 
the  mountains,  rivers,  many-sounding  seas ;  —  that  great 
deep  sea  of  azure  that  swims  overhead  ;  the  winds  sweeping 
through  it ;  the  black  cloud  fashioning  itseif  together,  now 


! 


1HE  TREES,   THE  -MOUNTAINS,   RIVERS." — Page  8. 


QF  THE 

OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  9 

pouring  out  fire,  now  hail  and  rain ;  what  is  it  ?  Ay,  what  ? 
At  bottom  we  do  not  yet  know ;  we  can  never  know  at  all.  It 
is  not  by  our  superior  insight  that  we  escape  the  difficulty  ; 
it  is  by  our  superior  levity,  our  inattention,  our  want  of 
insight.  It  is  by  not  thinking  that  we  cease  to  wonder  at  it. 
Hardened  round  us,  encasing  wholly  every  notion  we  form, 
is  a  wrappage  of  traditions,  hearsays,  mere  words.  We  call 
that  fire  of  the  black  thunder-cloud  "electricity,"  and  lecture 
learnedly  about  it,  and  grind  the  like  of  it  out  of  glass  and 
silk :  but  what  is  it  ?  What  made  it  ?  Whence  comes  it  ? 
Whither  goes  it?  Science  has  done  much  for  us;  but  it  is 
a  poor  science  that  would  hide  from  us  the  great  deep 
sacred  infinitude  of  Nescience,  whither  we  can  never  pene- 
trate, on  which  all  science  swims  as  a  mere  superficial  film. 
This  world,  after  all  our  science  and  sciences,  is  still  a 
miracle ;  wonderful,  inscrutable,  7>iagical  and  more,  to  who- 
soever will  think  of  it. 

That  great  mystery  of  Time,  were  there  no  other;  the 
illimitable,  silent,  never-resting  thing  called  Time,  rolling, 
rushing  on,  swift,  silent,  like  an  all-embracing  ocean-tide,  on 
which  we  and  all  the  Universe  swim  like  exhalations,  like 
apparitions  which  are,  and  then  are  not :  this  is  forever  very 
literally  a  miracle  ;  a  thing  to  strike  us  dumb,  —  for  we  have 
no  word  to  speak  about  it.  This  universe,  ah  me  —  what 
could  the  wild  man  know  of  it ;  what  can  we  yet  know  ? 
That  it  is  a  Force,  and  thousand-fold  Complexity  of  Forces  ; 
a  Force  which  is  not  we.  That  is  all ;  it  is  not  we,  it  is  alto- 
gether different  from  us.  Force,  Force,  everywhere  Force ; 
we  ourselves  a  mysterious  Force  in  the  centre  of  that. 
"  There  is  not  a  leaf  rotting  on  the  highway  but  has  Force 
in  it :  how  else  could  it  rot  ?  "  Nay  surely,  to  the  Atheistic 
Thinker,  if  such  a  one  were  possible,  it  must  be  a  miracle 
too,  this  huge  illimitable  whirlwind  of  Force,  which  envel- 


10  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

ops  us  htre ;  never-resting  whirlwind,  high  as  Immensity, 
old  as  Eternity.  What  is  it  ?  God's  creation,  the  religions 
people  answer  ;  it  is  the  Almighty  God's  !  Atheistic  science 
babbles  poorly  of  it,  with  scientific  nomenclatures,  experi- 
ments and  what-not,  as  if  it  were  a  poor  dead  thing,  to  be 
bottled  up  in  Leyden  jars  and  sold  over  counters :  but  the 
natural  sense  of  man,  in  all  times,  if  he  will  honestly  apply 
his  sense,  proclaims  it  to  be  a  living  thing,  —  ah,  an  unspeak- 
able, godlike  thing ;  towards  which  the  best  attitude  for  us, 
after  never  so  much  science,  is  awe,  devout  prostration  and 
humility  of  soul ;  worship  if  not  in  words,  then  in  silence. 

But  now  I  remark  farther:  What  in  such  a  time  as  ours 
it  requires  a  Prophet  or  Poet  to  teach  us,  namely,  the  strip- 
ping-off  of  those  poor  undevout  wrappages,  nomenclatures 
and  scientific  hearsays,  —  this,  the  ancient  earnest  soul,  as 
yet  unincumbered  with  these  things,  did  for  itself.  The 
world,  which  is  now  divine  only  to  the  gifted,  was  then 
divine  to  whosoever  would  turn  his  eye  upon  it.  He  stood 
bare  before  it,  face  to  face.  u  All  was  Godlike  or  God :  "  — 
Jean  Paul  still  finds  it  so;  the  giant  Jean  Paul,  who  has 
power  to  escape  out  of  hearsays :  but  there  then  were  no 
hearsays.  Canopus  shining  down  over  the  desert,  with  its 
blue  diamond  brightness  (that  wild  blue  spirit-like  brightness, 
far  brighter  than  we  ever  witness  here),  would  pierce  into  the 
heart  of  the  wild  Ishmaelitish  man,  whom  it  was  guiding 
through  the  solitary  waste  there.  To  his  wild  heart,  with 
all  feelings  in  it,  with  no  speech  for  any  feeling,  it  might 
seem  a  little  eye,  that  Canopus,  glancing  out  on  him  from 
the  great  deep  Eternity ;  revealing  the  inner  Splendor  to 
him.  Cannot  we  understand  how  these  men  worshipped 
Canopus  ;  became  what  we  call  Sabeans,  worshipping  the 
stars  ?  Such  is  to  me  the  secret  of  all  forms  of  Paganism. 
Worship  is  transcendent  wonder ;  wonder  for  which  there  is 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  1 1 

now  no  limit  or  measure;  that  is  worship.  To  these  pri- 
meval men,  all  things  and  every  thing  they  saw  exist  beside 
them  were  an  emblem  of  the  Godlike,  of  some  God. 

And  look  what  perennial  fibre  of  truth  was  in  that.  To 
us  also,  through  every  star,  through  every  blade  of  grass,  is 
not  a  God  made  visible,  if  we  will  open  our  minds  and  eyes  ? 
We  do  not  worship  in  that  way  now :  but  is  it  not  reckoned 
still  a  merit,  proof  of  what  we  call  a  "poetic  nature,"  that 
we  recognize  how  every  object  has  a  divine  beauty  in  it;  how 
every  object  still  verily  is  "  a  window  through  which  we  may 
look  into  Infinitude  itself"?  He  that  can  discern  the  loveli- 
ness of  things,  we  call  him  Poet,  Painter,  Man  of  Genius, 
gifted,  lovable.  These  poor  Sabeans  did  even  what  he  does, 
—  in  their  own  fashion.  That  they  did  it,  in  what  fashion 
soever,  was  a  merit :  better  than  what  the  entirely  stupid 
man  did,  what  the  horse  and  camel  did,  —  namely,  nothing! 

But  now  if  all  things  whatsoever  that  we  look  upon  are 
emblems  to  us  of  the  Highest  God,  I  add  that  more  so  than 
any  of  them  is  man  such  an  emblem.  You  have  heard  of 
St.  Chrysostom's  celebrated  saying  in  reference  to  the 
Shekinah,  or  Ark  of  Testimony,  visible  Revelation  of  God, 
among  the  Hebrews  :  "  The  true  Shekinah  is  Man!"  Yes, 
it  is  even  so :  this  is  no  vain  phrase  ;  it  is  veritably  so. 
The  essence  of  our  being,  the  mystery  in  us  that  calls  itself 
"I,"  —  ah,  what  words  have  we  for  such  things?  —  is  a 
breath  of  Heaven;  the  Highest  Being  reveals  himself  in 
man.  This  body,  these  faculties,  this  life  of  ours,  is  it  not  all 
as  a  vesture  for  that  Unnamed  ?  "  There  is  but  one  Tem- 
ple in  the  Universe,"  says  the  devout  Novalis,  "  and  that  is 
the  Body  of  Man.  Nothing  is  holier  than  that  high  form. 
Bending  before  men  is  a  reverence  done  to  this  Revelation 
in  the  Flesh.  We  touch  Heaven  when  we  lay  our  hand  on 
a  human  body  !  "     This  sounds  much  like  a  mere  flourish  of 


12  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

rhetoric  ;  but  it  is  not  so.  If  well  meditated,  it  will  turn 
out  to  be  a  scientific  fact ;  the  expression,  in  such  words  as 
can  be  had,  of  the  actual  truth  of  the  thing.  We  are  the 
miracle  of  miracles,  —  the  great  inscrutable  mystery  of  God. 
We  cannot  understand  it,  we  know  not  how  to  speak  of  it ; 
but  we  may  feel  and  know,  if  we  like,  that  it  is  verily  so. 

Well ;  these  truths  were  once  more  readily  felt  than  now. 
The  young  generations  of  the  world,  who  had  in  them 
the  freshness  of  young  children,  and  yet  the  depth  of  ear- 
nest men,  who  did  not  think  that  they  had  finished  off  all 
things  in  Heaven  and  Earth  by  merely  giving  them  scien- 
tific names,  but  had  to  gaze  direct  at  them  there,  with  awe 
and  wonder :  they  felt  better  what  of  divinity  is  in  man  and 
Nature;  —  they,  without  being  mad,  could  worship  Nature, 
and  man  more  than  any  thing  else  in  Nature.  Worship, 
that  is,  as  I  said  above,  admire  without  limit :  this,  in  the 
full  use  of  their  faculties,  with  all  sincerity  of  heart,  they 
could  do.  I  consider  Hero-worship  to  be  the  grand  modify- 
ing element  in  that  ancient  system  of  thought.  What  I 
called  the  perplexed  jungle  of  Paganism  sprang,  we  may 
say,  out  of  many  roots :  every  admiration,  adoration  of  a 
star  or  natural  object,  was  a  root  or  fibre  of  a  root ;  but 
Hero-worship  is  the  deepest  root  of  all ;  the  tap-root,  from 
which  in  a  great  degree  all  the  rest  were  nourished  and 
grown. 

And  now  if  worship  even  of  a  star  had  some  meaning  in 
it,  how  much  more  might  that  of  a  Hero !  Worship  of  a 
Hero  is  transcendent  admiration  of  a  Great  Man.  I  say 
great  men  are  still  admirable  ;  I  say  there  is,  at  bottom, 
nothing  else  admirable !  No  nobler  feeling  than  this  of 
admiration  for  one  higher  than  himself  dwells  in  the  breast 
of  man.  It  is  to  this  hour,  and  at  all  hours,  the  vivifying 
influence  in  man's  life.     Religion  I  find  stand  upon  it ;  not 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  1 3 

Paganism  only,  but  far  higher  and  truer  religions,  —  all 
religion  hitherto  known.  Hero-worship,  heartfelt  prostrate 
admiration,  submission,  burning,  boundless,  for  a  noblest 
godlike  Form  of  Man,  —  is  not  that  the  germ  of  Christian- 
ity itself?  The  greatest  of  all  Heroes  is  One  —  whom  we 
do  not  name  here  !  Let  sacred  silence  meditate  that  sacred 
matter  ;  you  will  find  it  the  ultimate  perfection  of  a  princi 
pie  extant  throughout  man's  whole  history  on  earth. 

Or  coming  into  lower,  less  w/zspeakable  provinces,  is  not 
all  Loyalty  akin  to  religious  Faith  also  ?  Faith  is  loyalty  to 
some  inspired  Teacher,  some  spiritual  Hero.  And  what 
therefore  is  loyalty  proper,  the  life-breath  of  all  society,  but 
an  effluence  of  Hero  worship,  submissive  admiration  for  the 
truly  great  ?  Society  is  founded  on  Hero-worship.  All  dig- 
nities of  rank,  on  which  human  association  rests,  are  what 
we  may  call  a  Heroaxchy  (Government  of  Heroes),  —  or  a 
Hierarchy,  for  it  is  "sacred1'  enough  withal!  The  Duke 
means  Dux,  Leader ;  King  is  Kon-ning,  Kan-ning,  Man 
that  knows  or  cans.  Society  everywhere  is  some  represen- 
tation, not  ///supportably  inaccurate,  of  a  graduated  Worship 
of  Heroes;  —  reverence  and  obedience  done  to  men  really 
great  and  wise.  Not  /^supportably  inaccurate,  I  say!  They 
are  all  as  bank-notes,  these  social  dignitaries,  all  represent- 
ing gold;  —  and  several  of  them,  alas,  always  are  forged  notes. 
We  can  do  with  some  forged  false  notes ;  with  a  good  many 
even;  but  not  with  all,  or  the  most  of  them,  forged!  No: 
there  have  to  come  revolutions  then  ;  cries  of  Democracy, 
Liberty  and  Equality,  and  I  know  not  what :  —  the  notes  being 
all  false,  and  no  gold  to  be  had  for  them,  people  take  to  cry- 
ing in  their  despair  that  there  is  no  gold,  that  there  never 
was  any !  —  "  Gold,"  Hero-worship,  is  nevertheless,  as  it 
was  always  and  everywhere,  and  cannot  cease  till  man  him- 
self ceases. 


14  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

I  am  well  aware  that  in  these  days  Hero-worship,  the 
thing  I  call  Hero-worship,  professes  to  have  gone  out,  and 
finally  ceased.  This,  for  reasons  which  it  will  be  worth 
while  some  time  to  inquire  into,  is  an  age  that  as  it  were 
denies  the  existence  of  great  men ;  denies  the  desirableness 
of  great  men.  Show  our  critics  a  great  man,  a  Luther  for 
example,  they  begin  to  what  they  call  "  account "  for  him ; 
not  to  worship  him,  but  take  the  dimensions  of  him,  —  and 
bring  him  out  to  be  a  little  kind  of  man  !  He  was  the  "  crea- 
ture of  the  Time,"  they  say ;  the  Time  called  him  forth,  the 
Time  did  everything,  he  nothing  —  but  what  we  the  little 
critic  could  have  done  too !  This  seems  to  me  but  melan- 
choly work.  The  Time  call  forth  ?  Alas,  we  have  known 
Times  call  loudly  enough  for  their  great  man  ;  but  not  find 
him  when  they  called !  He  was  not  there  ;  Providence  had 
not  sent  him  ;  the  Time,  calling  its  loudest,  had  to  go  down 
to  confusion  and  wreck  because  he  would  not  come  when 
called. 

For  if  we  will  think  of  it,  no  Time  need  have  gone  to  ruin, 
could  it  have  found  a  man  great  enough,  a  man  wise  and 
good  enough:  wisdom  to  discern  truly  what  the  Time 
wanted,  valor  to  lead  it  on  the  right  road  thither ;  these  are 
the  salvation  of  any  Time.  But  I  liken  common  languid 
Times,  with  their  unbelief,  distress,  perplexity,  with  their 
languid  doubting  characters  and  embarrassed  circumstances, 
impotently  crumbling  down  into  ever  worse  distress  towards 
final  ruin ;  —  all  this  I  liken  to  dry  dead  fuel,  waiting  for  the 
lightning  out  of  Heaven  that  shall  kindle  it.  The  great  man, 
with  his  free  force  direct  out  of  God's  own  hand,  is  the  light- 
ning. His  word  is  the  wise  healing  word  which  all  can 
believe  in.  All  blazes  round  him  now,  when  he  has  once 
struck  on  it,  into  fire  like  his  own.  The  dry  mouldering 
sticks  are  thought  to  have  called  him  forth.     They  did  want 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  1 5 

him  greatly;  but  as  to  calling  him  forth  — !  —  Those  are 
critics  of  small  vision,  I  think,  who  cry :  "  See,  is  it  not  the 
sticks  that  made  the  fire?"  No  sadder  proof  can  be  given 
by  a  man  of  his  own  littleness  than  disbelief  in  great  men. 
There  is  no  sadder  symptom  of  a  generation  than  such  gen- 
eral blindness  to  the  spiritual  lightning,  with  faith  only  in  the 
heap  of  barren  dead  fuel.  It  is  the  last  consummation  of 
unbelief.  In  all  epochs  of  the  world's  history,  we  shall  find 
the  Great  Man  to  have  been  the  indispensable  savior  of  his 
epoch  ;  —  the  lightning,  without  which  the  fuel  never  would 
have  burnt.  The  History  of  the  World,  I  said  already,  was 
the  Biography  of  Great  Men. 

Such  small  critics  do  what  they  can  to  promote  unbelief 
and  universal  spiritual  paralysis :  but  happily  they  cannot 
always  completely  succeed.  In  all  times  it  is  possible  for  a 
man  to  arise  great  enough  to  feel  that  they  and  their  doctrines 
are  chimeras  and  cobwebs.  And  what  is  notable,  in  no  time 
whatever  can  they  entirely  eradicate  out  of  living  men's  hearts 
a  certain  altogether  peculiar  reverence  for  Great  Men ;  genu- 
ine admiration,  loyalty,  adoration,  however  dim  and  perverted 
it  may  be.  Hero-worship  endures  forever  while  man  endures. 
Boswell  venerates  his  Johnson,  right  truly  even  in  the  Eigh- 
teenth century.  The  unbelieving  French  believe  in  their 
Voltaire ;  and  burst  out  round  him  into  very  curious  Hero- 
worship,  in  that  last  act  of  his  life  when  they  "  stifle  him  under 
roses."  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  extremely  curious,  this 
of  Voltaire.  Truly,  if  Christianity  be  the  highest  instance 
of  Hero-worship,  then  we  may  find  here  in  Voltaireism  one  of 
the  lowest !  He  whose  life  was  that  of  a  kind  of  Antichrist, 
does  again  on  this  side  exhibit  a  curious  contrast.  No 
people  ever  were  so  little  prone  to  admire  at  all  as  those 
French  of  Voltaire.  Persiflage  was  the  character  of  their 
whole  mind ;  adoration  had  nowhere  a  place  in  it.     Yet  see  ! 


1 6  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

The  old  man  of  Ferney  comes  up  to  Paris ;  an  old,  tottering, 
infirm  man  of  eighty-four  years.  They  feel  that  he  too  is  a 
kind  of  Hero ;  that  he  has  spent  his  life  in  opposing  error 
and  injustice,  delivering  Calases,  unmasking  hypocrites  in 
high  places  ;  —  in  short  that  he  too,  though  in  a  strange  way, 
has  fought  like  a  valiant  man.  They  feel  withal  that,  if  per- 
siflage be  the  great  thing,  there  never  was  such  ?Lpersiflcur. 
He  is  the  realized  ideal  of  every  one  of  them  ;  the  thing  they 
are  all  wanting  to  be ;  of  all  Frenchmen  the  most  French. 
He  is  properly  their  god,  —  such  god  as  they  are  fit  for. 
Accordingly  all  persons,  from  the  Queen  Antoinette  to  the 
Douanier  at  the  Porte  St.  Denis,  do  they  not  worship  him  ? 
People  of  quality  disguise  themselves  as  tavern-waiters.  The 
Maitre  de  Poste,  with  a  broad  oath,  orders  his  Postilion, 
"  Va  bon  train;  thou  art  driving  M.  de  Voltaire."  At  Paris 
his  carriage  is  "the  nucleus  of  a  comet,  whose  train  fills 
whole  streets."  The  ladies  pluck  a  hair  or  two  from  his  fur, 
to  keep  it  as  a  sacred  relic.  There  was  nothing  highest,  beau- 
tifulest,  noblest,  in  all  France,  that  did  not  feel  this  man  to  be 
higher,  beautifuler,  nobler. 

Yes,  from  Norse  Odin  to  English  Samuel  Johnson,  from 
the  divine  Founder  of  Christianity  to  the  withered  Pontiff  of 
Encyclopedism,  in  all  times  and  places,  the  Hero  has  been 
worshipped.  It  will  ever  be  so.  We  all  love  great  men ; 
love,  venerate  and  bow  down  submissive  before  great  men : 
nay,  can  we  honestly  bow  down  to  any  thing  else  ?  Ah,  does 
not  every  true  man  feel  that  he  is  himself  made  higher  by 
doing  reverence  to  what  is  really  above  him  ?  No  nobler  or 
more  blessed  feeling  dwells  in  man's  heart.  And  to  me  it 
is  very  cheering  to  consider  that  no  sceptical  logic,  or  general 
triviality,  insincerity  and  aridity  of  any  Time  and  its  influ- 
ences can  destroy  this  noble  inborn  loyalty  and  worship  that 
is  in  man-     in  times  of  unbelief.,  which  soon  have  to  become 


THE   HERO   AS  DIVINITY.  I? 

times  of  revolution,  much  down-rushing,  sorrowful  decay  and 
ruin  is  visible  to  everybody.  For  myself  in  these  days,  I 
seem  to  see  in  this  indestructibility  of  Hero-worship  the 
everlasting  adamant  lower  than  which  the  confused  wreck 
of  revolutionary  things  cannot  fall.  The  confused  wreck  of 
things  crumbling,  and  even  crashing  and  tumbling  all  around 
us,  in  these  revolutionary  ages,  will  get  down  so  far ;  no 
farther.  It  is  an  eternal  corner-stone,  from  which  they  can 
begin  to  build  themselves  up  again.  That  man,  in  some 
sense  or  other,  worships  Heroes;  that  we  all  of  us  rever- 
ence and  must  ever  reverence  Great  Men :  this  is,  to  me, 
the  living  rock  amid  all  rushings-down  whatsoever;  —  the 
one  fixed  point  in  modern  revolutionary  history,  otherwise 
as  if  bottomless  and  shoreless. 

So  much  of  truth,  only  under  an  ancient  obsolete  vesture, 
but  the  spirit  of  it  still  true,  do  I  find  in  the  Paganism  of  old 
nations.  Nature  is  still  divine,  the  revelation  of  the  work- 
ings of  God  ;  the  Hero  is  still  worshipable  :  this,  under  poor 
cramped  incipient* forms,  is  what  all  Pagan  religions  have 
struggled,  as  they  could,  to  set  forth.  I  think  Scandinavian 
Paganism,  to  us  here,  is  more  interesting  than  any  other.  It 
is,  for  one  thing,  the  latest ;  it  continued  in  these  regions  of 
Europe  till  the  eleventh  century :  eight  hundred  years  ago 
the  Norwegians  were  still  worshippers  of  Odin.  It  is  inter- 
esting also  as  the  creed  of  our  fathers  ;  the  men  whose 
blood  still  runs  in  our  veins,  whom  doubtless  we  still  re- 
semble in  so  many  ways.  Strange :  they  did  believe  that, 
while  we  believe  so  differently.  Let  us  look  a  little  more  at 
this  poor  Norse  creed,  for  many  reasons.  We  have  toler- 
able means  to  do  it ;  for  there  is  another  point  of  interest 
in  these  Scandinavian  mythologies:  that  they  have  been 
preserved  so  well. 


1 8  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

In  that  strange  island  Iceland,  —  burst  up,  the  geologists 
say,  by  fire  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea ;  a  wild  land  of  bar- 
renness and  lava ;  swallowed  many  months  of  every  year  in 
black  tempests,  yet  with  a  wild  gleaming  beauty  in  summer- 
time ;  towering  up  there,  stern  and  grim,  in  the  North  Ocean  ; 
with  its  snow  jokuls,  roaring  geysers,  sulphur-pools  and  horrid 
volcanic  chasms,  like  the  waste  chaotic  battle-field  of  Frost 
and  Fire;  —  where  of  all  places  we  least  looked  for  Litera- 
ture or  written  memorials,  the  record  of  these  things  was 
written  down.  On  the  seaboard  of  this  wild  land  is  a  rim 
of  grassy  country  where  cattle  can  subsist,  and  men  by 
means  of  them  and  of  what  the  sea  yields  ;  and  it  seems 
they  were  poetic  men  these,  men  who  had  deep  thoughts  in 
them,  and  uttered  musically  their  thoughts.  Much  would  be 
lost,  had  Iceland  not  been  burst  up  from  the  sea,  not  been 
discovered  by  the  Northmen !  The  old  Norse  Poets  were 
many  of  them  natives  of  Iceland. 

Sa^mund,  one  of  the  early  Christian  Priests  there,  who 
perhaps  had  a  lingering  fondness  for  Paganism,  collected 
certain  of  their  old  Pagan  songs,  just  about  becoming  obsolete 
then,  —  Poems  or  Chants  of  a  mythic,  prophetic,  mostly  all 
of  a  religious  character :  that  is  what  Norse  critics  call  the 
Elder  or  Poetic  Edda.  Edda,  a.  word  of  uncertain  etymol- 
ogy, is  thought  to  signify  Ancestress.  Snorro  Sturleson,  an 
Iceland  gentleman,  an  extremely  notable  personage,  educated 
by  this  Sasmund's  grandson,  took  in  hand  next,  near  a  century 
afterwards,  to  put  together,  among  several  other  books  he 
wrote,  a  kind  of  Prose  Synopsis  of  the  whole  Mythology; 
elucidated  by  new  fragments  of  traditionary  verse.  A  work 
constructed  really  with  great  ingenuity,  native  talent,  what  one 
might  call  unconscious  art ;  altogether  a  perspicuous  clear 
work,  pleasant  reading  still :  this  is  the  Younger  or  Prose 
Edda.     By  these  and  the  numeruos   other  Sagas,  mostly 


THE  HERO   AS  DIVINITY.  1 9 

Icelandic;  with  the  commentaries,  Icelandic  or  not,  which  go 
on  zealously  in  the  North  to  this  day,  it  is  possible  to  gain 
some  direct  insight  even  yet ;  and  see  that  old  Norse  system 
of  Belief,  as  it  were,  face  to  face.  Let  us  forget  that  it  is 
erroneous  Religion  ;  let  us  look  at  it  as  old  Thought,  and  try 
if  we  cannot  sympathize  with  it  somewhat. 

The  primary  characteristic  of  this  old  Northland  Myth- 
ology I  find  to  be  Impersonation  of  the  visible  workings 
of  -Nature.  Earnest  simple  recognition  of  the  workings  of 
Physical  Nature,  as  a  thing  wholly  miraculous,  stupendous 
and  divine.  What  we  now  lecture  of  as  Science,  they 
wondered  at,  and  fell  down  in  awe  before,  as  Religion.  The 
dark  hostile  Powers  of  Nature  they  figure  to  themselves  as 
"  Jotuns"  Giants,  huge  shaggy  beings  of  a  demonic  char- 
acter. Frost,  Fire,  Sea-tempest;  these  are  Jotuns.  The 
friendly  Powers  again,  as  Summer-heat,  the  Sun,  are  Gods. 
The  empire  of  this  Universe  is  divided  between  these  two; 
they  dwell  apart,  in  perennial  internecine  feud.  The  Gods 
dwell  above  in  Asgard,  the  Garden  of  the  Asen,  or  Divini- 
ties; Jotunheim,  a  distant  dark  chaotic  land,  is  the  home  of 
the  Jotuns. 

Curious  all  this  ;  and  not  idle  or  inane,  if  we  will  look  at 
the  foundation  of  it !  The  power  of  Fire*  or  Flame,  for  in 
stance,  which  we  designate  by  some  trivial  chemical  name, 
thereby  hiding  from  ourselves  the  essential  character  of  won- 
der that  dwells  in  it  as  in  all  things,  is  with  these  old  North- 
men, Loke,  a  most  swift  subtle  Demon,  of  the  brood  of  the 
Jotuns.  The  savages  of  the  Ladrones  Islands  too  (say  some 
Spanish  voyagers)  thought  Fire,  which  they  never  had  seen 
before,  was  a  devil  or  god,  that  bit  you  sharply  when  you 
touched  it,  and  that  lived  upon  dry  wood.  From  us  too  no 
Chemistry,  if  it  had  not  Stupidity  to  help  it,  would  hide  that 
Flame  is  a  wonder.    What  is  Flame  ?  —  Frost  the  old  Norse 


20  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Seer  discerns  to  be  a  monstrous  hoary  Jotun,  the  Giant 
Thrym,  Hrym;  or  Rime,  the  old  word  now  nearly  obsolete 
here,  but  still  used  in  Scotland  to  signify  hoar-frost.  Rime 
was  not  then  as  now  a  dead  chemical  thing,  but  a  living 
Jotun  or  Devil ;  the  monstrous  Jotun  Rime  drove  home  his 
Horses  at  night,  sat  "  combing  their  manes,"  —  which  Horses 
were  Hail-Clouds,  ox  fleet  Frost-Winds.  His  Cows  —  No, 
not  his,  but  a  kinsman's,  the  Giant  Hymir's  Cows  are  Ice- 
bergs :  this  Hymir  "  looks  at  the  rocks  "  with  his  devil-eye, 
and  they  split  in  the  glance  of  it. 

Thunder  was  not  then  mere  Electricity,  vitreous  or  resi- 
nous ;  it  was  the  God  Donner  (Thunder)  or  Thor,  —  God  also 
of  beneficent  Summer-heat.  The  thunder  was  his  wrath  ; 
the  gathering  of  the  black  clouds  is  the  drawing-down  of 
Thors  angry  brows  ;  the  fire-bolt  bursting  out  of  Heaven  is 
the  all-rending  Hammer  flung  from  the  hand  of  Thor :  he 
urges  his  loud  chariot  over  the  mountain-tops,  —  that  is  the 
peal;  wrathful  he  "blows  in  his  red  beard,"  —  that  is  the 
rustling  stormblast  before  the  thunder  begin.  Balder  again, 
the  White  God,  the  beautiful,  the  just  and  benignant  (whom 
the  early  Christian  Missionaries  found  to  resemble  Christ), 
is  the  Sun,  —  beautifulest  of  visible  things ;  wondrous  too, 
and  divine  still,  after  all  our  Astronomies  and  Almanacs  ! 
But  perhaps  the  notablest  god  we  hear  tell  of  is  one  of  whom 
Grimm  the  German  Etymologist  finds  trace  :  the  God  Wiinsch, 
or  Wish.  The  God  Wish;  who  could  give  us  all  that  we 
wished/  Is  not  this  the  sincerest  and  yet  rudest  voice  of 
the  spirit  of  man  ?  The  rudest  ideal  that  man  ever  formed  ; 
which  still  shows  itself  in  the  latest  forms  of  our  spiritual 
culture.  Higher  considerations  have  to  teach  us  that  the 
God  Wish  is  not  the  true  God. 

Of  the  other  Gods  or  Jotuns  I  will  mention  only  for 
etymology's  sake,  that  Sea-tempest  is  the  Jotun  Aegir,  a  very 


UBRMW 

cm  OF  H-UH01S 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  21 

dangerous  Jotun; —  and  now  to  this  day,  on  our  River  Trent, 
as  I  learn,  the  Nottingham  bargemen,  when  the  River  is  in 
a  certain  flooded  state  (a  kind  of  backwater,  or  eddying  swirl 
it  has,  very  dangerous  to  them),  call  it  Eager;  they  cry  out, 
"  Have  a  care,  there  is  the  Eager  coming !  "  Curious  ;  that 
word  surviving,  like  the  peak  of  a  submerged  world  !  The 
oldest  Nottingham  bargemen  had  believed  in  the  God  Aegir. 
Indeed  our  English  blood  too  in  good  part  is  Danish,  Norse ; 
or  rather,  at  bottom,  Danish  and  Norse  and  Saxon  have  no 
distinction,  except  a  superficial  one, — as  of  Heathen  and 
Christian,  or  the  like.  But  all  over  our  Island  we  are 
mingled  largely  with  Danes  proper,  —  from  the  incessant 
invasions  there  were :  and  this,  of  course,  in  a  greater  propor- 
tion along  the  east  coast ;  and  greatest  of  all,  as  I  find,  in 
the  North  Country.  From  the  Humber  upwards,  all  over 
Scotland,  the  Speech  of  the  common  people  is  still  in  a 
singular  degree  Icelandic;  its  Germanism  has  still  a  peculiar 
Norse  tinge.  They  too  are  "Normans,"  Northmen,  —  if 
that  be  any  great  beauty  !  — 

Of  the  chief  god,  Odin,  we  shall  speak  by  and  by.  Mark 
at  present  so  much  ;  what  the  essence  of  Scandinavian  and 
indeed  of  all  Paganism  is:  a  recognition  of  the  forces  of 
Nature  as  godlike,  stupendous,  personal  Agencies,  —  as 
Gods  and  Demons.  Not  inconceivable  to  us.  It  is  the 
infant  Thought  of  man  opening  itself,  with  awe  and  wonder, 
on  this  ever-stupendous  Universe.  To  me  there  is  in  the 
Norse  System  something  very  genuine,  very  great  and  man- 
like. A  broad  simplicity,  rusticity,  so  very  different  from 
the  light  gracefulness  of  the  old  Greek  Paganism,  distin- 
guishes this  Scandinavian  System.  It  is  Thought;  the 
genuine  Thought  of  deep,  rude,  earnest  minds,  fairly  opened 
to  the  things  about  them ;  a  face-to-face  and  heart-to-heart 
inspection  of  the  things, — the  first  characteristic  of  all  good 


22  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Thought  in  all  times.  Not  graceful  lightness,  half-sport,  as 
in  the  Greek  Paganism ;  a  certain  homely  truthfulness  and 
rustic  strength,  a  great  rude  sincerity,  discloses  itself  here. 
It  is  strange,  after  our  beautiful  Apollo  statues  and  clear 
smiling  mythuses,  to  come  down  upon  the  Norse  Gods 
"brewing  ale"  to  hold  their  feast  with  Aegir,  the  Sea-Jotun ; 
sending  out  Thor  to  get  the  caldron  for  them  in  the  Jotun 
country ;  Thor,  after  many  adventures,  clapping  the  Pot  on 
his  head,  like  a  huge  hat,  and  wralking  off  with  it, — quite 
lost  in  it,  the  ears  of  the  Pot  reaching  down  to  his  heels  ! 
A  kind  of  vacant  hugeness,  large  awkward  gianthood, 
characterizes  that  Norse  System  ;  enormous  force,  as  yet 
altogether  untutored,  stalking  helpless  with  large  uncertain 
strides.  Consider  only  their  primary  mythus  of  the  Creation. 
The  Gods,  having  got  the  Giant  Ymer  slain,  a  Giant  made 
by  "  warm  wind,"  and  much  confused  work,  out  of  the  conflict 
of  Frost  and  Fire,  —  determined  on  constructing  a  world 
with  him.  His  blood  made  the  Sea;  his  flesh  was  the  Land, 
the  Rocks  his  bones  ;  of  his  eyebrows  they  formed  Asgard 
their  Gods1  dwelling  ;  his  skull  was  the  great  blue  vault  of 
Immensity,  and  the  brains  of  it  became  the  Clouds.  What 
a  Hyper-Brobdignagian  business !  Untamed  Thought, 
great,  giantlike,  enormous  ;  —  to  be  tamed  in  due  time  into 
the  compact  greatness,  not  giantlike,  but  godlike  and 
stronger  than  gianthood,  of  the  Shakspeares,  the  Goethes  J 
—  Spiritually  as  well  as  bodily  these  men  are  our  progeni- 
tors. 

I  like,  too,  that  representation  they  have  of  the  Tree  Ig- 
drasil.  All  Life  is  figured  by  them  as  a  Tree.  Igdrasil,  the 
Ash-tree  of  Existence,  has  its  roots  deep-down  in  the  king- 
doms of  Hela  or  Death ;  its  trunk  reaches  up  heaven-high, 
spreads  its  boughs  over  the  whole  Universe  :  it  is  the  Tree 
of  Existence.     At  the  foot  of  it,  in  the  Death-kingdom,  sit 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  23 

Three  Arornas,  Fates,  —  the  Past,  Present,  Future  ;  water- 
ing its  roots  from  the  Sacred  Well.  Its  "boughs,"  with 
their  buddings  and  disleafings, — events,  things  suffered, 
things  done,  catastrophes, — stretch  through  all  lands  and 
times.  Is  not  every  leaf  of  it  a  biography,  every  fibre  there 
an  act  or  word?  Its  boughs  are  Histories  of  Nations. 
The  rustle  of  it  is  the  noise  of  Human  Existence,  onwards 
from  of  old.  It  grows  there,  the  breath  of  Human  Passion 
rustling  through  it;  —  or  stormtost,  the  stormwind  howling 
through  it  like  the  voice  of  all  the  gods.  It  is  Igdrasil,  the 
Tree  of  Existence.  It  is  the  past,  the  present,  and  the 
future ;  what  was  done,  what  is  doing,  what  will  be  done  ; 
"  the  infinite  conjugation  of  the  verb  To  do"  Considering 
how  human  things  circulate,  each  inextricably  in  communion 
with  all,  —  how  the  word  I  speak  to  you  to-day  is  borrowed, 
not  from  Ulfila  the  Mcesogoth  only,  but  from  all  men  since 
the  first  man  began  to  speak,  —  I  find  no  similitude  so  true 
as  this  of  a  Tree.  Beautiful ;  altogether  beautiful  and  great. 
The  "  Machine  of  the  Universe,"  —  alas,  do  but  think  of 
that  in  contrast ! 

Well,  it  is  strange  enough,  this  old  Norse  view  of  Nature; 
different  enough  from  what  we  believe  of  Nature.  Whence 
it  specially  came,  one  would  not  like  to  be  compelled  to  say 
very  minutely !  One  thing  we  may  say  :  It  came  from  the 
thoughts  of  Norse  men ;  —  from  the  thought,  above  all,  of 
the  first  Norse  man  who  had  an  original  power  of  thinking. 
The  First  Norse  "  man  of  genius,"  as  we  should  call  him  ! 
Innumerable  men  had  passed  by,  across  this  Universe,  with 
a  dumb  vague  wonder,  such  as  the  very  animals  may  feel ; 
or  with  a  painful,  fruitlessly  inquiring  wonder,  such  as  men 
only  feel; — till  the  great  Thinker  came,  the  original  man, 
the  Seer ;  whose  shaped  spoken  Thought  awakes  the  slum- 


24  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

bering  capability  of  all  into  Thought.  It  is  ever  the  way 
with  the  Thinker,  the  spiritual  Hero.  What  he  says,  all 
men  were  not  far  from  saying,  were  longing  to  say.  The 
Thoughts  of  all  start  up,  as  from  painful  enchanted  sleep, 
round  his  Thought ;  answering  to  it,  Yes,  even  so  !  Joyful 
to  men  as  the  dawning  of  day  from  night;  —  is  it  not, 
indeed,  the  awakening  for  them  from  no-being  into  being, 
from  death  into  life  ?  We  still  honor  such  a  man :  call 
him  Poet,  Genius,  and  so  forth  :  but  to  these  wild  men  he 
was  a  very  magician,  a  worker  of  miraculous  unexpected 
blessing  for  them ;  a  Prophet,  a  God !  —  Thought  once 
awakened  does  not  again  slumber;  unfolds  itself  into  a 
System  of  Thought ;  grows,  in  man  after  man,  generation 
after  generation, — till  its  full  stature  is  reached,  and  such 
System  of  Thought  can  grow  no  farther,  but  must  give  place 
to  another. 

For  the  Norse  people,  the  Man  now  named  Odin,  and 
Chief  Norse  God,  we  fancy,  was  such  a  man.  A  Teacher, 
and  Captain  of  soul  and  of  body;  a  Hero,  of  worth  ////measur- 
able ;  admiration  for  whom,  transcending  the  known  bounds, 
became  adoration.  Has  he  not  the  power  of  articulate 
Thinking ;  and  many  other  powers,  as  yet  miraculous  ?  So, 
with  boundless  gratitude,  would  the  rude  Norse  heart  feel. 
Has  he  not  solved  for  them  the  sphinx-enigma  of  this  Uni- 
verse ;  given  assurance  to  them  of  their  own  destiny  there  ? 
By  him  they  know  now  what  they  have  to  do  here,  what  to 
look  for  hereafter.  Existence  has  become  articulate,  melo- 
dious, by  him  ;  he  first  has  made  Life  alive  !  —  We  may  call 
this  Odin,  the  origin  of  Norse  Mythology  :  Odin,  or  what- 
ever name  the  First  Norse  Thinker  bore  while  he  was  a  man 
among  men.  His  view  of  the  Universe  once  promulgated, 
a  like  view  starts  into  being  in  all  minds ;  grows,  keeps 
ever  growing,  while   it    continues   credible   there.      In   all 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  2£ 

minds  it  lay  written,  but  invisibly,  as  in  sympathetic  ink  ;  at 
his  word  it  starts  into  visibility  in  all.  Nay,  in  every  epoch 
of  the  world,  the  great  event,  parent  of  all  others,  is  it  not 
the  arrival  of  a  Thinker  in  the  world  !  — 

One  other  thing  we  must  not  forget;  it  will  explain,  a 
little,  the  confusion  of  these  Norse  Eddas.  They  are  not 
one  coherent  System  of  Thought ;  but  properly  the  summa- 
tion of  several  successive  systems.  All  this  of  the  old 
Norse  Belief  which  is  flung  out  for  us,  in  one  level  of  dis- 
tance in  the  Edda,  like  a  picture  painted  on  the  same  canvas, 
does  not  at  all  stand  so  in  the  reality.  It  stands  rather  at 
all  manner  of  distances  and  depths,  of  successive  generations 
since  the  Belief  first  began.  All  Scandinavian  thinkers, 
since  the  first  of  them,  contributed  to  that  Scandinavian 
System  of  Thought ;  in  ever-new  elaboration  and  addition, 
it  is  the  combined  work  of  them  all.  What  history  it  had, 
how  it  changed  from  shape  to  shape,  by  one  thinker's  con- 
tribution after  another,  till  it  got  to  the  full  final  shape  we 
see  it  under  in  the  Edda,  no  man  will  now  ever  know :  its 
Councils  of  Trebisond,  Councils  of  Trent,  Athanasiuses, 
Dantes,  Luthers,  are  sunk  without  echo  in  the  dark  night ! 
Only  that  it  had  such  a  history  we  can  all  know.  Whereso- 
ever a  thinker  appeared,  there  in  the  thing  he  thought  of 
was  a  contribution,  accession,  a  change  or  revolution  made. 
Alas,  the  grandest  "  revolution  "  of  all,  the  one  made  by  the 
man  Odin  himself,  is  not  this  too  sunk  for  us  like  the  rest ! 
Of  Odin  what  history  ?  Strange  rather  to  reflect  that  he 
had  a  history !  That  this  Odin,  in  his  wild  Norse  vesture, 
with  his  wild  beard  and  eyes,  his  rude  Norse  speech  and 
ways,  was  a  man  like  us  ;  with  our  sorrows,  joys,  with  our 
limbs,  features;  —  intrinsically  all  one  as  we:  and  did  such 
a  work !  But  the  work,  much  of  it,  has  perished ;  the 
worker,  all   to  the  name.     "  IVednes&ny"  men  will  say  to- 


26  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

morrow ;  Odin's  day  !  Of  Odin  there  exists  no  history  :  no 
document  of  it ;  no  guess  about  it  worth  repeating. 

Snorro  indeed,  in  the  quietest  manner,  almost  in  a  brief 
business  style,  writes  down,  in  his  Heimskringla,  how  Odin 
was  a  heroic  Prince,  in  the  Black-Sea  region,  with  Twelve 
Peers,  and  a  great  people  straitened  for  room.  How  he  led 
these  Asen  (Asiatics)  of  his  out  of  Asia:  settled  them  in  the 
North  parts  of  Europe,  by  warlike  conquest ;  invented  Letters, 
Poetry  and  so  forth,  —  and  came  by  and  by  to  be  worshipped 
as  Chief  God  by  these  Scandinavians,  his  Twelve  Peers  made 
into  Twelve  Sons  of  his  own,  Gods  like  himself :  Snorro  has 
no  doubt  of  this.  Saxo  Grammaticas,  a  very  curious  North- 
man of  that  same  century,  is  still  more  unhesitating  ;  scruples 
not  to  find  out  a  historical  fact  in  every  individual  mythus, 
and  writes  it  down  as  a  terrestrial  event  in  Denmark  or  else- 
where. Torfaeus,  learned  and  cautious,  some  centuries  later, 
assigns  by  calculation  a  date  for  it :  Odin,  he  says,  came  into 
Europe  about  the  Year  70  before  Christ.  Of  all  which,  as 
grounded  on  mere  uncertainties,  found  to  be  untenable  now, 
I  need  say  nothing.  Far,  very  far  beyond  the  Year  70! 
Odin's  date,  adventures,  whole  terrestrial  history,  figure  and 
environment  are  sunk  from  us  forever  into  unknown  thou- 
sands of  years. 

Nay  Grimm,  the  German  Antiquary,  goes  so  far  as  to  deny 
that  any  man  Odin  ever  existed.  He  proves  it  by  etymology. 
The  word  Wuolan,  which  is  the  original  form  of  Odin,  a  word 
spread,  as  name  of  their  chief  Divinity,  over  all  the  Teutonic 
Nations  everywhere  ;  this  word,  which  connects  itself,  accord- 
ing to  Grimm,  with  the  Latin  vadere,  with  the  English  wade 
and  suchlike,  —  means  primarily  Movement,  Source  of  Move- 
ment, Power ;  and  is  the  fit  name  of  the  highest  god,  not  of 
any  man.  The  word  signifies  Divinity,  he  says,  among  the 
old  Saxon,  German  and  all  Teutonic  Nations ;  the  adjectives 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  2J 

formed  from  it  all  signify  divine,  supreme,  or  something  per- 
taining to  the  chief  god.  Like  enough  !  We  must  bow  to 
Grimm  in  matters  etymological.  Let  us  consider  it  fixed 
that  Wuotan  means  Wading,  force  of  Movement.  And  now- 
still,  what  hinders  it  from  being  the  name  of  a  Heroic  Man 
and  Mover,  as  well  as  of  a  god  ?  As  for  the  adjectives,  and 
words  formed  from  it,  —  did  not  the  Spaniards  in  their  uni- 
versal admiration  for  Lope,  get  into  the  habit  of  saying  "a 
Lope  flower,"  "  a  Lope  dama"  if  the  flower  or  woman  were 
of  surpassing  beauty  ?  Had  this  lasted,  Lope  would  have 
grown,  in  Spain,  to  be  an  adjective  signifying  godlike  also. 
Indeed,  Adam  Smith,  in  his  Essay  on  Language,  surmises 
that  all  adjectives  whatsoever  were  formed  precisely  in  that 
way:  some  very  green  thing,  chiefly  notable  for  its  greenness, 
got  the  appellative  name  Green,  and  then  the  next  thing  re- 
markable for  that  quality,  a  tree  for  instance,  was  named  the 
green  tree,  —  as  we  still  say  "the  steam  coach,"  "four-horse 
coach,"  or  the  like.  All  primary  adjectives,  according  to 
Smith,  were  formed  in  this  way ;  were  at  first  substantives 
and  things.  We  cannot  annihilate  a  man  for  etymologies 
like  that !  Surely  there  was  a  First  Teacher  and  Captain  ; 
surely  there  must  have  been  an  Odin,  palpable  to  the  sense 
at  one  time  ;  no  adjective,  but  a  real  Hero  of  flesh  and  blood  ! 
The  voice  of  all  tradition,  history  or  echo  of  history,  agrees 
with  all  that  thought  will  teach  one  about  it,  to  assure  us  of 
this. 

How  the  man  Odin  came  to  be  considered  a  god,  the  chief 
god?  —  that  surely  is  a  question  which  nobody  would  wish  to 
dogmatize  upon.  I  have  said,  his  people  knew  no  limits  to 
their  admiration  of  him  ;  they  had  as  yet  no  scale  to  measure 
admiration  by.  Fancy  your  own  generous  heart's-love  of 
some  greatest  man  expanding  till  it  transcended  all  bounds, 
till  it  filled  and  overflowed  the  whole  field  of  your  thought ! 


28  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Or  what  if  this  man  Odin,  —  since  a  great  deep  soul,  with  the 
afflatus  and  mysterious  tide  of  vision  and  impulse  rushing  on 
him  he  knows  not  whence,  is  ever  an  enigma,  a  kind  of  terror 
and  wonder  to  himself,  —  should  have  felt  that  perhaps  he 
was  divine ;  that  he  was  some  effluence  of  the  "  Wuotan," 
"  Moveme7it"  Supreme  Power  and  Divinity,  of  whom  to  his 
rapt  vision  all  Nature  was  the  awful  Flame-image  ;  that  some 
effluence  of  Wuotan  dwelt  here  in  him  !  He  was  not  neces- 
sarily false ;  he  was  but  mistaken,  speaking  the  truest  he 
knew.  A  great  soul,  any  sincere  soul,  knows  not  what  he  is, 
—  alternates  between  the  highest  height  and  the  lowest 
depth;  can,  of  all  things,  the  least  measure  —  Himself! 
What  others  take  him  for,  and  what  he  guesses  that  he  may 
be  ;  these  two  items  strangely  act  on  one  another,  help  to  de- 
termine one  another.  With  all  men  reverently  admiring  him ; 
with  his  own  wild  soul  full  of  noble  ardors  and  affections,  of 
whirlwind  chaotic  darkness  and  glorious  new  light ;  a  divine 
Universe  bursting  all  into  godlike  beauty  round  him,  and  no 
man  to  whom  the  like  ever  had  befallen,  what  could  he  think 
himself  to  be?  "Wuotan?"  All  men  answered,  "Wuo- 
tan ! "  — 

And  then  consider  what  mere  Time  will  do  in  such  cases ; 
how  if  a  man  was  great  while  living,  he  becomes  tenfold 
greater  when  dead.  What  an  enormous  ca7tiera-obscura  mag- 
nifier is  Tradition  !  How  a  thing  grows  in  the  human  Mem- 
ory, in  the  human  Imagination,  when  love,  worship  and  all 
that  lies  in  the  human  Heart,  is  there  to  encourage  it;  And 
in  the  darkness,  in  the  entire  ignorance  ;  without  date  or  doc- 
ument, no  book,  no  Arundel-marble ;  only  here  and  there 
some  dumb  monumental  cairn.  Why,  in  thirty  or  forty  years, 
were  there  no  books,  any  great  man  would  grow  mythic,  the 
contemporaries  who  had  seen  him,  being  once  all  dead.  And 
in  three  hundred  years,  and  in  three  thousand  years  —  !  —  To 


THE  HERO   AS  DIVINITY.  29 

attempt  theorizing  on  such  matters  would  profit  little :  they 
are  matters  which  refuse  to  be  theoremed  and  diagramed ; 
which  Logic  ought  to  know  that  she  cannot  speak  of.  Enough 
for  us  to  discern,  far  in  the  uttermost  distance,  some  gleam 
as  of  a  small  real  light  shining  in  the  centre  of  that  enormous 
camera-obscura  image  ;  to  discern  that  the  centre  of  it  all 
was  not  a  madness  and  nothing,  but  a  sanity  and  something. 
This  light,  kindled  in  the  great  dark  vortex  of  the  Norse 
mind,  dark  but  living,  waiting  only  for  light ;  this  is  to  me 
the  centre  of  the  whole.  How  such  light  will  then  shine  out,  I 
and  with  wondrous  thousand-fold  expansion  spread  itself,  in 
forms  and  colors,  depends  not  on  it,  so  much  as  on  the  National 
Mind  recipient  of  it.  The  colors  and  forms  of  your  light 
will  be  those  of  the  cut-glass  it  has  to  shine  through.  —  Curi- 
ous to  think  how,  for  every  man,  any  the  truest  fact  is  modelled 
by  the  nature  of  the  man  !  I  said,  The  earnest  man,  speak- 
ing to  his  brother  men,  must  always  have  stated  what  seemed 
to  him  a  fact,  a  real  Appearance  of  Nature.  But  the  way  in 
which  such  Appearance  or  fact  shaped  itself,  —  what  sort  of 
fact  it  became  for  him,  —  was  and  is  modified  by  his  own 
laws  of  thinking;  deep,  subtle,  but  universal,  ever-operating 
laws.  The  world  of  Nature,  for  every  man,  is  the  Fantasy 
of  Himself;  this  world  is  the  multiplex  "Image  of  his  own 
Dream."  Who  knows  to  what  unnamable  subtleties  of  spir- 
itual law  all  these  Pagan  Fables  owe  their  shape  !  The  num- 
ber Twelve,  divisiblest  of  all,  which  could  be  halved,  quar- 
tered, parted  into  three,  into  six,  the  most  remarkable  number, 
—  this  was  enough  to  determine  the  Signs  of  the  Zodiac,  the 
number  of  Odin's  Sons,  and  innumerable  other  Twelves. 
Any  vague  rumor  of  number  had  a  tendency  to  settle  itself 
into  Twelve.  So  with  regard  to  every  other  matter.  And 
quite  unconsciously  too,  —  with  no  notion  of  building  up 
"  Allegories  " !    But  the  fresh  clear  glance  of  those  First 


30  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Ages  would  be  prompt  in  discerning  the  secret  relations  of 
things,  and  wholly  open  to  obey  these.  Schiller  finds  in  the 
Cestus  of  Venus  an  everlasting  aesthetic  truth  as  to  the  nature 
of  all  Beauty ;  curious  :  —  but  he  is  careful  not  to  insinuate 
that  the  old  Greek  Mythists  had  any  notion  of  lecturing  about 

the  "  Philosophy  of  Criticism  " ! On  the  whole,  we  must 

leave  those  boundless  regions.  Cannot  we  conceive  that 
Odin  was  a  reality  ?  Error  indeed,  error  enough  :  but  sheer 
falsehood,  idle  fables,  allegory  aforethought,  —  we  will  not 
believe  that  our  Fathers  believed  in  these. 

Odin's  Runes  are  a  significant  feature  of  him.  Runes, 
and  the  miracles  of  "  magic  "  he  worked  by  them,  make  a 
great  feature  in  tradition.  Runes  are  the  Scandinavian 
Alphabet ;  suppose  Odin  to  have  been  the  inventor  of  Let- 
ters, as  well  as  "  magic,"  among  that  people  !  It  is  the 
greatest  invention  man  has  ever  made,  this  of  marking 
down  the  Unseen  thought  that  is  in  him  by  written  charac- 
ters. It  is  a  kind  of  second  speech,  almost  as  miraculous 
as  the  first.  You  remember  the  astonishment  and  incredulity 
of  Atahualpa  the  Peruvian  King ;  how  he  made  the  Spanish 
Soldier  who  was  guarding  him  scratch  Dios  on  his  thumb 
nail,  that  he  might  try  the  next  soldier  with  it,  to  ascertain 
whether  such  a  miracle  was  possible.  If  Odin  brought 
Letters  among  his  people,  he  might  work  magic  enough! 

Writing  by  Runes  has  some  air  of  being  original  among 
the  Norsemen :  not  a  Phoenician  Alphabet,  but  a  native 
Scandinavian  one.  Snorro  tells  us  farther  that  Odin  in- 
vented Poetry ;  the  music  of  human  speech,  as  well  as  that 
miraculous  runic  marking  of  it.  Transport  yourselves  into 
the  early  childhood  of  nations ;  the  first  beautiful  morning- 
light  of  our  Europe,  when  all  yet  lay  in  fresh  young  radiance 
as  of  a  great  sunrise,  and  our  Europe  was  first  beginning  to 


THE  HERO   AS  DIVINITY.  3 1 

think,  to  be  !  Wonder,  hope  ;  infinite  radiance  of  hope  and 
wonder,  as  of  a  young  child's  thoughts,  in  the  hearts  of 
these  strong  men  !  Strong  sons  of  Nature  ;  and  here  was 
not  only  a  wild  Captain  and  Fighter ;  discerning  with  his 
wild  flashing  eyes  what  to  do,  with  his  wild  lion-heart  dar- 
ing and  doing  it ;  but  a  Poet  too,  all  that  we  mean  by  a  Poet, 
Prophet,  great  devout  Thinker  and  Inventor,  — as  the  truly 
Great  Man  ever  is.  A  Hero  is  a  Hero  at  all  points ;  in  the 
soul  and  thought  of  him  first  of  all.  This  Odin,  in  his  rude 
semi-articulate  way,  had  a  word  to  speak.  A  great  heart 
laid  open  to  take  in  this  great  Universe,  and  man's  Life 
here,  and  utter  a  great  word  about  it.  A  Hero,  as  I  say,  in  his 
own  rude  manner ;  a  wise,  gifted,  noble-hearted  man.  And 
now,  if  we  still  admire  such  a  man  beyond  all  others,  what 
must  these  wild  Norse  souls,  first  awakened  into  thinking, 
have  made  of  him !  To  them,  as  yet  without  names  for  it, 
he  was  noble  and  noblest ;  Hero,  Prophet,  God ;  Wuotan, 
the  greatest  of  all.  Thought  is  Thought,  however  it  speak 
or  spell  itself.  Intrinsically,  I  conjecture,  this  Odin  must 
have  been  of  the  same  sort  of  stuff  as  the  greatest  kind  of 
men.  A  great  thought  in  the  wild  deep  heart  of  him  !  The 
rough  words  he  articulated,  are  they  not  the  rudimental  roots 
of  those  English  words  we  still  use  ?  He  worked  so,  in 
that  obscure  element.  But  he  was  as  a  light  kindled  in  it ;  a 
light  of  Intellect,  rude  Nobleness  of  heart,  the  only  kind  of 
lights  we  have  yet;  a  Hero,  as  I  say:  and  he  had  to  shine 
there,  and  make  his  obscure  element  a  little  lighter,  —  as  is 
still  the  task  of  us  all. 

We  will  fancy  him  to  be  the  Type  Norseman  ;  the  finest 
Teuton  whom  that  race  had  yet  produced.  The  rude  Norse 
heart  burst  up  into  boundless  admiration  round  him ;  into 
adoration.  He  is  as  a  root  of  so  many  great  things;  the 
fruit  of  him  is  found  growing,  from  deep  thousands  of  years, 


32  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

over  the  whole  field  of  Teutonic  Life.  Our  own  Wednes- 
day, as  I  said,  is  it  not  still  Odin's  Day?  Wedhesbury, 
Wansborough,  Wanstead,  Wandsworth :  Odin  grew  into 
England  too,  these  are  still  leaves  from  that  root !  He  was 
the  Chief  God  to  all  the  Teutonic  Peoples  ;  their  Pattern 
Norseman;  —  in  such  way  did  they  admire  their  Pattern 
Norseman ;  that  was  the  fortune  he  had  in  the  world. 

Thus  if  the  man  Odin  himself  have  vanished  utterly, 
there  is  this  huge  Shadow  of  him  which  still  projects  itself 
over  the  whole  History  of  his  People.  For  this  Odin  once 
admitted  to  be  God,  we  can  understand  well  that  the  whole 
Scandinavian  Scheme  of  Nature,  or  dim  No-scheme,  what- 
ever it  might  before  have  been,  would  now  begin  to  develop 
itself  altogether  differently,  and  grow  thenceforth  in  a  new 
manner.  What  this  Odin  saw  into,  and  taught  with  his 
runes  and  his  rhymes,  the  whole  Teutonic  People  laid  to 
heart  and  carried  forward.  His  way  of  thought  became 
their  way  of  thought:  —  such,  under  new  conditions,  is  the 
history  of  every  great  thinker  still.  In  gigantic  confused 
lineaments,  like  some  enormous  camera-obscura  shadow 
thrown  upwards  from  the  dead  deeps  of  the  Past,  and  cover- 
ing the  whole  Northern  Heaven,  is  not  that  Scandinavian 
Mythology  in  some  sort  the  Portraiture  of  this  man  Odin? 
The  gigantic  image  of  his  natural  face,  legible  or  not  legible 
there,  expanded  and  confused  in  that  manner  !  Ah,  Thought, 
I  say,  is  always  Thought.  No  great  man  lives  in  vain.  The 
History  of  the  world  is  but  the  Biography  of  great  men. 

To  me  there  is  something  very  touching  in  this  primeval 
figure  of  Heroism ;  in  such  artless,  helpless,  but  hearty  en- 
tire reception  of  a  Hero  by  his  fellow-men.  Never  so  help- 
less in  shape,  it  is  the  noblest  of  feelings,  and  a  feeling  in 
some  shape  or  other  perennial  as  man  himself.  If  I  could 
show  in  any  measure,  what  I  feel  deeply  for  a  long  time  now, 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  33 

That  it  is  the  vital  element  of  manhood,  the  soul  of  man's  his- 
tory here  in  our  world,  —  it  would  be  the  chief  use  of  this 
discoursing  at  present.  We  do  not  now  call  our  great  men 
Gods,  nor  admire  without  limit :  ah  no,  with  limit  enough  ! 
But  if  we  have  no  great  men,  or  do  not  admire  at  all,  —  that 
were  a  still  worse  case. 

This  poor  Scandinavian  Hero-worship,  that  whole  Norse 
way  of  looking  at  the  Universe,  and  adjusting  one's  self 
there,  has  an  indestructible  merit  for  us.  A  rude  childlike 
way  of  recognizing  the  divineness  of  Nature,  the  divineness 
of  Man  ;  most  rude,  yet  heartfelt,  robust,  giantlike  ;  betoken- 
ing what  a  giant  of  a  man  this  child  would  yet  grow  to  !  —  It 
was  a  truth,  and  is  none.  Is  it  not  as  the  half-dumb  stifled 
voice  of  the  long-buried  generations  of  our  own  Fathers, 
calling  out  of  the  depths  of  ages  to  us,  in  whose  veins  their 
blood  still  runs :  This  then,  this  is  what  we  made  of  the 
world :  this  is  all  the  image  and  notion  we  could  form  to 
ourselves  of  this  great  mystery  of  a  Life  and  Universe. 
Despise  it  not.  You  are  raised  high  above  it,  to  large  free 
scope  of  vision  ;  but  you  too  are  not  yet  at  the  top.  No, 
your  notion  too,  so  much  enlarged,  is  but  a  partial,  imperfect 
one  ;  that  matter  is  a  thing  no  man  will  ever,  in  time  or  out 
of  time,  comprehend ;  after  thousands  of  years  of  ever-new 
expansion,  man  will  find  himself  but  struggling  to  compre- 
hend again  a  part  of  it :  the  thing  is  larger  than  man,  not 
to  be  comprehended  by  him  ;  an  Infinite  thing  !  " 

The  essence  of  the  Scandinavian,  as  indeed  of  all  Pagan 
Mythologies,  we  found  to  be  recognition  of  the  divineness 
of  Nature ;  sincere  communion  of  man  with  the  mysterious 
invisible  Powers  visibly  seen  at  work  in  the  world  round 
him.  This,  I  should  say,  is  more  sincerely  done  in  the 
Scandinavian  than  in  any  Mythology  I  know.     Sincerity  is 


34  LECTURES   ON  HEROES. 

the  great  characteristic  of  it.  Superior  sincerity  (far  su- 
perior) consoles  us  for  the  total  want  of  old  Grecian  grace. 
Sincerity,  I  think,  is  better  than  grace.  I  feel  that  these 
old  Northmen  were  looking  into  Nature  with  open  eye  and 
soul:  most  earnest,  honest;  childlike,  and  yet  manlike;  with 
a  gr^at-hearted  simplicity  and  depth  and  freshness,  in  a  true, 
loving,  admiring,  unfearing  way.  A  right  valiant,  true  old 
race  of  men.  •  Such  recognition  of  Nature  one  finds  to  be 
the  chief  element  of  Paganism :  recognition  of  Man,  and  his 
Moral  Duty,  though  this  too  is  not  wanting,  comes  to  be 
the  chief  element  only  in  purer  forms  of  religion.-  Here, 
indeed,  is  a  great  distinction  and  epoch  in  Human  Beliefs  ; 
a  great  landmark  in  the  religious  development  of  Mankind. 
Man  first  puts  himself  in  relation  with  Nature  and  her 
Powers,  wonders  and  worships  over  those ;  not  till  a  later 
epoch  does  he  discern  that  all  Power  is  Moral,  that  the 
grand  point  is  the  distinction  for  him  of  Good  and  Evil,  of 
Thou  shall  and  Thou  shalt  not. 

With  regard  to  all  these  fabulous  delineations  in  the  Edda, 
I  will  remark,  moreover,  as  indeed  was  already  hinted,  that 
most  probably  they  must  have  been  of  much  newer  date ; 
most  probably,  even  from  the  first,  were  comparatively  idle 
for  the  old  Norsemen,  and  as  it  were  a  kind  of  Poetic  sport. 
Allegory  and  Poetic  Delineation,  as  I  said  above,  cannot  be 
religious  Faith ;  the  Faith  itself  must  first  be  there,  then 
Allegory  enough  will  gather  round  it,  as  the  fit  body  round 
its  soul.  The  Norse  Faith,  I  can  well  suppose,  like  other 
Faiths,  was  most  active  while  it  lay  mainly  in  the  silent 
state,  and  had  not  yet  much  to  say  about  itself,  still  less  to 
sing. 

Among  those  shadowy  Edda  matters,  amid  all  that  fantas- 
tic congeries  of  assertions,  and  traditions,  in  their  musical 
Mythologies,  the  main  practical  belief  a  man  could  have  was 


THE  HERO   AS  DIVINITY.  35 

probably  not  much  more  than  this :  of  the  Valkyrs  and  the 
Hall  of  Odin;  of  an  inflexible  Destiny;  and  that  the  one 
thing  needful  for  a  man  was  to  be  brave.  The  Valkyrs  are 
Choosers  of  the  Slain  :  a  Destiny  inexorable,  which  it  is 
useless  trying  to  bend  or  soften,  has  appointed  who  is  to  be 
slain  ;  this  was  a  fundamental  point  for  the  Norse  believer  ; 
—  as  indeed  it  is  for  all  earnest  men  everywhere,  for  a 
Mahomet,  a  Luther,  for  a  Napoleon  too.  It  lies  at  the  basis 
this  for  every  such  man  ;  it  is  the  woof  out  of  which  his 
whole  system  of  thought  is  woven.  The  Valkyrs ;  and  then 
that  these  Choosers  lead  the  brave  to  a  heavenly  Hall  of 
Odin;  only  the  base  and  slavish  being  thrust  elsewhither, 
into  the  realms  of  Hela  the  Death-goddess  :  I  take  this  to 
have  been  the  soul  of  the  whole  Norse  Belief.  They  under- 
stood in  their  heart  that  it  was  indispensable  to  be  brave ; 
that  Odin  would  have  no  favor  for  them,  but  despise  and 
thrust  them  out,  if  they  were  not  brave.  Consider  too 
whether  there  is  not  something  in  this  !  It  is  an  everlasting 
duty,  valid  in  our  day  as  in  that,  the  duty  of  being  brave. 
Valor  is  still  value.  The  first  duty  for  a  man  is  still  that 
of  subduing  Fear.  We  must  get  rid  of  Fear ;  we  cannot 
act  at  all  till  then.  A  man's  acts  are  slavish,  not  true 
but  specious ;  his  very  thoughts  are  false,  he  thinks  too  as 
a  slave  and  coward,  till  he  have  got  Fear  under  his  feet. 
Odin's  creed,  if  we  disentangle  the  real  kernel  of  it,  is  true 
to  this  hour.  A  man  shall  and  must  be  valiant ;  he  must 
march  forward,  and  quit  himself  like  a  man,  —  trusting 
imperturbably  in  the  appointment  and  choice  of  the  upper 
Powers  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  not  fear  at  all.  Now  and  always, 
the  completeness  of  his  victory  over  Fear  will  determine  hew 
nuch  of  a  man  he  is. 

It  is  doubtless  very  savage  that  kind  of   valor  of  the  old 
Northmen,     Snorro  tells  us   they  thought  it   a  shame  w) 


36  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

misery  not  to  die  in  battle ;  and  if  natural  death  seemed  to 
be  coming  on,  they  would  cut  wounds  in  their  flesh,  that 
Odin  might  receive  them  as  warriors  slain.  Old  kings,  about 
to  die,  had  their  body  laid  into  a  ship ;  the  ship  sent  forth, 
with  sails  set  and  slow  fire  burning  it;  that,  once  out  at 
sea,  it  might  blaze  up  in  flame,  and  in  such  manner  bury 
worthily  the  old  hero,  at  once  in  the  sky  and  in  the  ocean  ! 
Wild  bloody  valor,  yet  valor  of  its  kind ;  better,  I  say, 
than  none.  In  the  old  Sea-kings  too,  what  an  indomitable 
rugged  energy !  Silent,  with  closed  lips,  as  I  fancy  them, 
unconscious  that  they  were  specially  brave ;  defying  the 
wild  ocean  with  its  monsters,  and  all  men  and  things;  — 
progenitors  of  our  own  Blakes  and  Nelsons !  No  Homer 
sang  these  Norse  Sea-kings;  but  Agamemnon's  was  a  small 
audacity,  and  of  small  fruit  in  the  world,  to  some  of  them; 
— -to  Hrolfs  of  Normandy,  for  instance!  Hrolf,  or  Rollo 
Duke  of  Normandy,  the  wild  Sea-king,  has  a  share  in 
governing  England  at  this  hour. 

Nor  was  it  altogether  nothing,  even  that  wild  sea-roving 
and  battling,  through  so  many  generations.  It  needed  to  be 
ascertained  which  was  the  strongest  kind  of  men  ;  who  were 
to  be  ruler  over  whom.  Among  the  Northland  Sovereigns, 
too,  I  find  some  who  got  the  title  Wood-cutter ;  Forest-fel- 
ling Kings.  Much  lies  in  that.  I  suppose  at  bottom  many 
of  them  were  forest-fellers  as  well  as  fighters,  though  the 
Skalds  talk  mainly  of  the  latter,  —  misleading  certain  critics 
not  a  little  ;  for  no  nation  of  men  could  ever  live  by  fighting 
alone  ;  there  could  not  produce  enough  come  out  of  that ! 
I  suppose  the  right  good  fighter  was  oftenest  also  the  right 
good  forest-feller,  —  the  right  good  improver,  discerner,  doer 
and  worker  in  every  kind;  for  true  valor,  different  enough 
from  ferocity,  is  the  basis  of  all.  A  more  legitimate  kind 
o{  valor  that}   showing  itself  against  the  untamed  Forests 


SHINING  AND  SHAPING  ITSELF  IN  THE  HUGE  VORTEX  OF  NORSE 

darkness."—  Page  37. 


LIBRAHY 

OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  $7 

and  dark  brute  Powers  of  Nature,  to  conquer  Nature  for  us. 
In  the  same  direction  have  not  we  their  descendants  since 
carried  it  far  ?     May  such  valor  last  forever  with  us  ! 

That  the  man  Odin,  speaking  with  a'  Hero's  voice  and 
heart,  as  with  an  impressiveness  out  of  Heaven,  told  his 
People  the  infinite  importance  of  Valor,  how  man  thereby 
became  a  god;  and  that  his  People,  feeling  a  response  to  it 
in  their  own  hearts,  believed  this  message  of  his,  and  thought 
it  a  message  out  of  Heaven,  and  him  a  Divinity  for  telling  it 
them :  this  seems  to  me  the  primary  seed-grain  of  the  Norse 
Religion,  from  which  all  manner  of  mythologies,  symbolic 
practices,  speculations,  allegories,  songs  and  sagas  would 
naturally  grow.  Grow,  —  how  strangely  !  I  called  it  a 
small  light  shining  and  shaping  in  the  huge  vortex  of  Norse 
darkness.  Yet  the  darkness  itself  was  alive ;  consider 
that.  It  was  the  eager  inarticulate  uninstructed  Mind  of 
the  whole  Norse  People,  longing  only  to  become  articulate, 
to  go  on  articulating  ever  farther !  The  living  doctrine 
grows,  grows  ;  —  like  a  Banyan-tree ;  the  first  seed  is  the 
essential  thing:  any  branch  strikes  itself  down  into  the 
earth,  becomes  a  new  root ;  and  so,  in  endless  complexity, 
we  have  a  whole  wood,  a  whole  jungle,  one  seed  the  parent 
of  it  all.  Was  not  the  whole  Norse  Religion,  accordingly, 
in  some  sense,  what  we  called  "the  enormous  shadow  of 
this  man's  likeness  "  ?  Critics  trace  some  affinity  in  some 
Norse  mythuses,  of  the  Creation  and  suchlike,  with  those  of 
the  Hindoos.  The  Cow  Adumbla,  "licking  the  rime  from 
the  rocks,"  has  a  kind  of  Hindoo  look.  A  Hindoo  Cow, 
transported  into  frosty  countries.  Probably  enough  ;  indeed 
we  may  say  undoubtedly,  these  things  will  have  a  kindred 
with  the  remotest  lands,  with  the  earliest  times.  Thought 
does  not  die,  but  only  is  changed.  The  first  man  that  began : 
to  think  in  this  Planet  of  ours,  he  was  the  beginner  of  all. 


38  LECTURES  OJV  HEROES. 

And  then  the  second  man,  and  the  third  man; — nay,  every 
true  Thinker  to  this  hour  is  a  kind  of  Odin,  teaches  men  his 
way  of  thought,  spreads  a  shadow  of  his  own  likeness  over 
sections  of  the  History  of  the  World. 

Of  the  distinctive  poetic  character  or  merit  of  this  Norse 
Mythology  I  have  not  room  to  speak ;  nor  does  it  concern 
us  much.  Some  wild  Prophecies  we  have,  as  the  Voluspa 
in  the  Elder  Edda;  of  a  rapt,  earnest,  sibylline  sort.  But 
they  were  comparatively  an  idle  adjunct  of  the  matter,  men 
who  as  it  were  but  toyed  with  the  matter,  these  later  Skalds ; 
and  it  is  their  songs  chiefly  that  survive.  In  later  centuries, 
I  suppose,  they  would  go  on  singing,  poetically  symbolizing, 
as  our  modern  Painters  paint,  when  it  was  no  longer  from 
the  innermost  heart,  or  not  from  the  heart  at  all.  This  is 
everywhere  to  be  well  kept  in  mind. 

Gray's  fragments  of  Norse  Lore,  at  any  rate,  will  give  one 
no  notion  of  it;  —  anymore  than  Pope  will  of  Homer.  It 
is  no  square-built  gloomy  palace  of  black  ashlar  marble, 
shrouded  in  awe  and  horror,  as  Gray  gives  it  us :  no  ;  rough 
as  the  North  rocks,  as  the  Iceland  deserts,  it  is;  with  a 
heartiness,  homeliness,  even  a  tint  of  good  humor  and 
robust  mirth  in  the  middle  of  these  fearful  things.  The 
strong  old  Norse  heart  did  not  go  upon  theatrical  sublimi- 
ties ;  they  had  not  time  to  tremble.  I  like  much  their 
robust  simplicity  ;  their  veracity,  directness  of  conception. 
Thor  "  draws  down  his  brows  "  in  a  veritable  Norse  rage ; 
"grasps  his  hammer  till  the  knuckles  grow  white"  Beauti- 
ful traits  of  pity  too,  an  honest  pity.  Balder  "  the  white 
God "  dies ;  the  beautiful,  benignant ;  he  is  the  Sungod. 
They  try  all  Nature  for  a  remedy  ;  but  he  is  dead.  Frigga, 
his  mother,  sends  Hermoder  to  seek  or  see  him:  nine  days 
and  nine  nights   he  rides   through  gloomy  deep  valleys,  a 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  39 

labyrinth  of  gloom  ;  arrives  at  the  Bridge  with  ;ts  gold  roof . 
the  Keeper  says,  "Yes,  Balder  did  pass  here  ;  but  the  King- 
dom of  the  Dead  is  down  yonder,  far  towards  the  North." 
Hermoder  rides  on  ;  leaps  Hell-gate,  Hela's  gate ;  does  see 
Balder,  and  speak  with  him :  Balder  cannot  be  delivered. 
Inexorable!  Hela  will  not,  for  Odin  or  any  God,  give  him 
up.  The  beautiful  and  gentle  has  to  remain  there.  His 
Wife  had  volunteered  to  go  with  him,  to  die  with  him.  They 
shall  forever  remain  there.  He  sends  his  ring  to  Odin ; 
Nanna  his  wife  sends  her  thimble  to  Frigga,  as  a  remem- 
brance —  Ah  me  !  — 

For  indeed  Valor  is  the  fountain  of  Pity  too  ;  —  of  Truth, 
and  all  that  is  great  and  good  in  man.  The  robust  homely 
vigor  of  the  Norse  heart  attaches  one  much,  in  these 
delineations.  Is  it  not  a  trait  of  right  honest  strength, 
says  Uhland,  who  has  written  a  fine  Essay  on  Thor,  that 
the  old  Norse  heart  finds  its  friend  in  the  Thunger-god? 
That  it  is  not  frightened  away  by  his  thunder;  but  finds  t,hat 
Summer-heat,  the  beautiful  noble  summer,  must  and  will 
have  thunder  withal  !  The  Norse  heart  loves  this  Thor  and 
his  hammer-bolt;  sports  with  him.  Thor  is  Summer-heat; 
the  god  of  Peaceable  Industry  as  well  as  Thunder.  He  is 
the  Peasant's  friend ;  his  true  henchman  and  attendant  is 
Thialfi,  Manual  Labor.  Thor  himself  engages  in  all  manner 
of  rough  manual  work,  scorns  no  business  for  its  plebeian- 
ism;  is  ever  and  anon  travelling  to  the  country  of  the  Jotuns, 
harrying  those  chaotic  Frost-monsters,  subduing  them,  at 
least  straitening  and  damaging  them.  There  is  a  great 
broad  humor  in  some  of  these  things. 

Thor,  as  we  saw  above,  goes  to  Jotun-land,  to  seek 
Hymir's  Caldron,  that  the  Gods  may  brew  beer.  Hymir 
the  huge  Giant  enters,  his  gray  beard  all  full  of  hoar-frost ; 
splits  pillars  with  the  very  glance  of   his  eye;  Thor,  after 


40  LECTURES  OX  HEROES. 

much  rough  tumult,  snatches  the  Pot,  claps  it  on  his  head; 
the  "handles  of  it  reach  down  to  his  heels."  The  Norse 
Skald  has  a  kind  of  loving  sport  with  Thor.  This  is  the 
Hymir  whose  cattle,  the  critics  have  discovered,  are  Ice- 
bergs. Huge  untutored  Brobdignag  genius,  —  needing  only 
to  be  tamed  down;  into  Shakspeares,  Dantes,  Goethes  !  It 
is  all  gone  now,  that  old  Norse  work, —  Thor  the  Thunder- 
god  changed  into  Jack  the  Giant-killer :  but  the  mind  that 
made  it  is  here  yet.  How  strangely  things  grow,  and  die, 
and  do  not  die  !  There  are  twigs  of  that  great  world-tree  of 
Norse  Belief  still  curiously  traceable.  This  poor  Jack  of  the 
Nursery,  with  his  miraculous  shoes  of  swiftness,  coat  of 
darkness,  sword  of  sharpness,  he  is  one.  Hynde  Etin,  and 
still  more  decisively  Red  Etin  of  Ireland,  in  the  Scottish 
Ballads,  these  are  both  derived  from  Norseland ;  Etin  is 
evidently  a  Jo  tun.  Nay,  Shakspeare's  Ha7/ilet  is  a  twig 
too  of  this  same  world-tree ;  there  seems  no  doubt  of  that. 
Hamlet,  A mleth,  I  find,  is  really  a  mythic  personage ;  and 
his  Tragedy,  of  the  poisoned  Father,  poisoned  asleep  by 
drops  in  his  ear,  and  the  rest,  is  a  Morse  mythus !  Old 
Saxo,  as  his  wont  was,  made  it  a  Danish  history;  Shak- 
speare,  out  of  Saxo,  made  it  what  we  see.  That  is  a  twig  of 
the  world-tree  that  has  grown,  I  think ;  —  by  nature  or  acci- 
dent that  one  has  grown  ! 

In  fact,  these  old  Norse  songs  have  a  truth  in  them,  an 
inward  perennial  truth  and  greatness,  —  as,  indeed,  all  must 
have  that  can  very  long  preserve  itself  by  tradition  alone. 
It  is  a  greatness  not  of  mere  body  and  gigantic  bulk,  but  a 
rude  greatness  of  soul.  There  is  a  sublime  uncomplaining 
melancholy  traceable  in  these  old  hearts.  A  great  free  glance 
into  the  very  deeps  of  thought.  They  seem  to  have  seen, 
these  brave  old  Northmen,  what  Meditation  has  taught  all 
men  in  all  ages,  That  this  world  is  after  all  but  a  show,  —  a 


'      THE  HEkO  AS  DIVINITY.  4 1 

phenomenon  or  appearance,  no  real  thing.  All  deep  souls 
see  into  that,  —  the  Hindoo  Mythologist,  the  German  Philos- 
opher,—  the  Shakspeare,  the  earnest  Thinker,  wherever  he 
may  be :  — 

"  We  are  such  stuff  as  Dreams  are  made  of ! " 

One  of  Thor's  expeditions,  to  Utgard  (the  Outer  Garden, 
central  seat  of  Jotun-land),  is  remarkable  in  this  respect. 
Thialfi  was  with  him,  and  Loke.  After  various  adventures, 
they  entered  upon  Giant-land ;  wandered  over  plains,  wild 
uncultivated  places,  among  stones  and  trees.  At  nightfall 
they  noticed  a  house ;  and  as  the  door,  which  indeed  formed 
one  whole  side  of  the  house,  was  open,  they  entered.  It  was 
a  simple  habitation ;  one  large  hall,  altogether  empty.  They 
staid  there.  Suddenly  in  the  dead  of  the  night  loud  noises 
alarmed  them.  Thor  grasped  his  hammer;  stood  in  the 
door,  prepared  for  fight.  His  companions  within  ran  hither 
and  thither  in  their  terror,  seeking  some  outlet  in  that  rude 
hall ;  they  found  a  little  closet  at  last,  and  took  refuge  there. 
Neither  had  Thor  any  battle :  for,  lo,  in  the  morning  it 
turned  out  that  the  noise  had  been  only  the  snoring  of  a 
certain  enormous  but  peaceable  Giant,  the  Giant  Skrymir, 
who  lay  peaceably  sleeping  near  by;  and  this  that  they  took 
for  a  house  was  merely  his  G/07/e,  thrown  aside  there ;  the 
door  was  the  Glove-wrist;  the  little  closet  they  had  fled  into 
was  the  Thumb !  Such  a  glove  ;  —  I  remark  too  that  it  had 
not  fingers  as  ours  have,  but  only  a  thumb,  and  the  rest 
undivided  :  a  most  ancient,  rustic  glove  ! 

Skrymir  now  carried  their  portmanteau  all  day ;  Thor, 
however,  had  his  own  suspicions,  did  not  like  the  ways  of 
Skrymir;  determined  at  night  to  put  an  end  to  him  as  he 
slept.  Raising  his  hammer,  he  struck  down  into  the  Giant's 
face  a  right  thunderbolt  blow,  of  force  to  rend  rocks.     The 


42  LECTURES   ON  HEROES. 

Giant  merely  awoke  ;  rubbed  his  cheek,  and  said,  Did  a  leal 
fall?  Again  Thor  struck,  so  soon  as  Skrymir  again  slept;  a 
better  blow  than  before  ;  but  the  Giant  only  murmured,  Was 
that  a  grain  of  sand  ?  Thor's  third  stroke  was  with  both  his 
hands  (the  "  knuckles  white  "  I  suppose),  and  seemed  to  dint 
deep  into  Skrymir's  visage ;  but  he  merely  checked  his 
snore,  and  remarked,  There  must  be  sparrows  roosting  in 
this  tree,  I  think;  what  is  that  they  have  dropt? — At  the 
gate  of  Utgard,  a  place  so  high  that  you  had  to  "strain  your 
neck  bending  back  to  see  the  top  of  it,"  Skrymir  went  his 
ways.  Thor  and  his  companions  were  admitted ;  invited  to 
take  share  in  the  games  going  on.  To  Thor,  for  his  part, 
they  handed  a  Drinking-horn;  it  was  a  common  feat,  they 
told  him,  to  drink  this  dry  at  one  draught.  Long  and  fiercely, 
three  times  over,  Thor  drank  ;  but  made  hardly  any  impres- 
sion. He  was  a  weak  child,  they  told  him  :  could  he  lift  that 
Cat  he  saw  there?  Small  as  the  feat  seemed,  Thor  with  his 
whole  godlike  strength  could  not ;  he  bent  up  the  creature's 
back,  could  not  raise  its  feet  off  the  ground,  could  at  the 
utmost  raise  one  foot.  Why,  you  are  no  man,  said  the  Ut- 
gard people;  there  is  an  Old  Woman  that  will  wrestle  you. 
Thor,  heartily  ashamed,  seized  this  haggard  Old  Woman  ; 
but  could  not  throw  her. 

And  now,  on  their  quitting  Utgard,  the  chief  Jotun,  escort- 
ing them  politely  a  little  way,  said  to  Thor :  "  You  are 
beaten  then  :  —  yet  be  not  so  much  ashamed  ;  there  was  de- 
ception of  appearance  in  it.  That  Horn  you  tried  to  drink 
was  the  Sea  ;  you  did  make  it  ebb ;  but  who  could  drink  that, 
the  bottomless  !  The  Cat  you  would  have  lifted,  —  why,  that 
is  the  Midgard-snake,  the  Great  World-serpent,  which,  tail 
in  mouth,  girds  and  keeps  up  the  whole  created  world  ;  had 
you  torn  that  up,  the  world  must  have  rushed  to  ruin  !  As 
for  the  Old  Woman,  she  was  Time,  Old  Age,  Duration :  with 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  43 

her  what  can  wrestle  ?  No  man  nor  no  god  with  her ;  gods 
or  men,  she  prevails  over  all!  And  then  those  three  strokes 
you  struck,  —  look  at  these  three  valleys ;  your  three  strokes 
made  these  !  "  Thor  looked  at  his  attendant  Jotun  :  it  was 
Skrymir;  —  it  was,  say  Norse  critics,  the  old  chaotic  rocky 
Earth  in  person,  and  that  glove-house  was  some  Earth- 
cavern  !  But  Skrymir  had  vanished  ;  Utgard  with  its  sky- 
high  gates,  when  Thor  grasped  his  hammer  to  smite  them, 
had  gone  to  air ;  only  the  Giant's  voice  was  heard  mocking : 
"  Better  come  no  more  to  Jotunheim  !  "  — 

This  is  of  the  allegoric  period,  as  we  see,  and  half  play,  not 
of  the  prophetic  and  entirely  devout :  but  as  a  mythus  is  there 
not  real  antique  Norse  gold  in  it  ?  More  true  metal,  rough 
from  the  Mimer-stithy,  than  in  many  a  famed  Greek  Mythus 
shaped  far  better  !  A  great  broad  Brobdignag  grin  of  true 
humor  is  in  this  Skrymir;  mirth  resting  on  earnestness  and 
sadness,  as  the  rainbow  on  black  tempest :  only  a  right  valiant 
heart  is  capable  of  that.  It  is  the  grim  humor  of  our  own 
Ben  Jonson,  rare  old  Ben  ;  runs  in  the  blood  of  us,  I  fancy  ; 
for  one  catches  tones  of  it,  under  a  still  other  shape,  out  of 
the  American  Backwoods. 

That  is  also  a  very  striking  conception  that  of  the  Rag 
narok,  Consummation,  or  Twilight  of  the  Gods.  It  is  in  the 
Voluspa  Song ;  seemingly  a  very  old,  prophetic  idea.  The 
Gods  and  Jotuns,  the  divine  Powers  and  the  chaotic  brute 
ones,  after  long  contest  and  partial  victory  by  the  former, 
meet  at  last  in  universal  world-embracing  wrestle  and  duel  ; 
World-serpent  against  Thor,  strength  against  strength  :  mu- 
tually extinctive  ;  and  ruin,  "  twilight  "  sinking  into  darkness, 
swallows  the  created  Universe.  The  old  Universe  with  its 
Gods  is  sunk ;  but  it  is  not  final  death  :  there  is  to  be  a 
new  Heaven  and  a  new  Earth  ;  a  higher  supreme  God,  and 
Justice  to  reign  among  men.     Curious  ;  this  law  of  mutation, 


44  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

which  also  is  a  law  written  in  man's  inmost  thought,  had 
been  deciphered  by  these  old  earnest  Thinkers  in  their 
rude  style  ;  and  how,  though  all  dies,  and  even  gods  die, 
yet  all  death  is  but  a  phoenix  fire-death,  and  new-birth  into 
the  Greater  and  the  Better!  It  is  the  fundamental  Law 
of  Being  for  a  creature  made  of  Time,  living  in  this  Place  of 
Hope.  All  earnest  men  have  seen  into  it ;  may  still  see 
into  it. 

And  now,  connected  with  this,  let  us  glance  at  the  last 
mythus  of  the  appearance  of  Thor  ;  and  end  there.  I  fancy 
it  to  be  the  latest  in  date  of  all  these  fables  ;  a  sorrowing  pro- 
test against  the  advance  of  Christianity,  —  set  forth  reproach- 
fully by  some  Conservative  Pagan.  King  Olaf  has  been 
harshly  blamed  for  his  over-zeal  in  introducing  Christianity  ; 
surely  I  should  have  blamed  him  far  more  for  an  under-zeal 
in  that !  He  paid  dear  enough  for  it;  he  died  by  the  revolt 
of  his  Pagan  people,  in  battle,  in  the  year  1033,  at  Stickel- 
stad,  near  that  Drontheim,  where  the  chief  Cathedral  of  the 
North  has  now  stood  for  many  centuries,  dedicated  grate- 
fully to  his  memory  as  Saint  Olaf.  The  mythus  about  Thor 
is  to  this  effect.  King  Olaf,  the  Christian  Reform  King,  is 
sailing  with  fit  escort  along  the  shore  of  Norway,  from  haven 
to  haven  ;  dispensing  justice,  or  doing  other  royal  work  : 
on  leaving  a  certain  haven,  it  is  found  that  a  stranger,  of 
grave  eyes  and  aspect,  red  beard,  of  stately  robust  figure,  has 
stept  in.  The  courtiers  address  him  ;  his  answers  surprise 
by  their  pertinency  and  depth  :  at  length  he  is  brought  to  the 
King.  The  stranger's  conversation  here  is  not  less  remark- 
able, as  they  sail  along  the  beautiful  shore  ;  but  after  some 
time,  he  addresses  King  Olaf  thus  :  "  Yes,  King  Olaf,  it  is 
all  beautiful,  with  the  sun  shining  on  it  there  ;  green,  fruitful, 
a  right  fair  home  for  you  ;  and  many  a  sore  day  had  Thor, 
many  a  wild  fight  with  the  rock  Jotuns,  before  he  could  make 


THE  HERO   AS  DIVINITY.  45 

it  so.  And  now  you  seem  minded  to  put  away  Thor.  King 
Olaf,  have  a  care ! "  said  the  stranger,  drawing  down  his 
brows; — and  when  they  looked  again,  he  was  nowhere  to 
be  found.  —  This  is  the  last  appearance  of  Thor  on  the  stage 
of  this  world ! 

Do  we  not  see  well  enough  how  the  Fable  might  arise, 
without  unveracity  on  the  part  of  any  one  ?  It  is  the  way 
most  Gods  have  come  to  appear  among  men:  thus,  if  in 
Pindar's  time  "  Neptune  was  seen  once  at  the  Nemean 
Games,"  what  was  this  Neptune  too  but  a  "  stranger  of  noble 
grave  aspect," — fit  to  be  "seen"!  There  is  something 
pathetic,  tragic  for  me  in  this  last  voice  of  Paganism.  Thor 
is  vanished,  the  whole  Norse  world  has  vanished ;  and  will 
not  return  ever  again.  In  like  fashion  to  that  pass  away  the 
highest  things.  All  things  that  have  been  in  this  world,  all 
things  that  are  or  will  be  in  it,  have  to  vanish  :  we  have  our 
sad  farewell  to  give  them. 

That  Norse  Religion,  a  rude  but  earnest,  sternly  impres. 
sive  Consecration  of  Valor  (so  we  may  define  it),  sufficed  for 
these  old  valiant  Northmen.  Consecration  of  Valor  is  not 
a  bad  thing !  We  will  take  it  for  good,  so  far  as  it  goes. 
Neither  is  there  no  use  in  knowing  something  about  this  old 
Paganism  of  our  Fathers.  Unconsciously,  and  combined 
with  higher  things,  it  is  in  us  yet,  that  old  Faith  withal ! 
To  know  it  consciously,  brings  us  into  closer  and  clearer  re- 
lation with  the  Past,  —  with  our  own  possessions  in  the  Past 
For  the  whole  Past,  as  I  keep  repeating,  is  the  possession  of 
the  Present ;  the  Past  had  always  something  true,  and  is  a 
precious  possession.  In  a  different  time,  in  a  different  place, 
it  is  always  some  other  side  of  our  common  Human  Nature 
that  has  been  developing  itself.  The  actual  True  is  the  sum 
of  all  these  ;  not  any  one  of  them  by  itself  constitutes  what 
pf  Human   Nature  is  hitherto  developed.     Better  to  know 


46  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

them  all  than  misknow  them.  "  To  which  of  these  Three 
Religions  do  you  specially  adhere  ?  "  inquires  Meister  of  his 
Teacher.  "  To  all  the  Three  !  "  answers  the  other  :  "  To  all 
the  Three  ;  for  they  by  their  union  first  constitute  the  True 
Religion." 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  tf 


LECTURE    If. 

THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.     MAHOMET:    ISLAM. 
[Friday,  8th  May,  1840.] 

FROM  the  first  rude  times  of  Paganism  among  the  Scan- 
dinavians in  the  North,  we  advance  to  a  very  different 
epoch  of  religion,  among  a  very  different  people :  Mahomet- 
anism  among  the  Arabs.  A  great  change ;  what  a  change 
and  progress  is  indicated  here,  in  the  universal  condition 
and  thoughts  of  men  ! 

The  Hero  is  not  now  regarded  as  a  God  among  his  fellow- 
men  :  but  as  one  God-inspired,  as  a  Prophet.  It  is  the 
second  phasis  of  Hero-worship:  the  first  or  oldest,  we  may 
say.  has  passed  away  without  return;  in  the  history  of  the 
world  there  will  not  again  be  any  man,  never  so  great,  whom 
his  fellow-men  will  take  for  a  god.  Nay  we  might  rationally 
ask,  Did  any  set  of  human  beings  ever  really  think  the  man 
they  saw  there  standing  beside  them  a  god,  the  maker  of 
this  world  ?  Perhaps  not :  it  was  usually  some  man  they 
remembered,  or  had  seen.  But  neither  can  this  any  more 
be.  The  Great  Man  is  not  recognized  henceforth  as  a  god 
any  more. 

It  was  a  rude  gross  error,  that  of  counting  the  Great  Man 
a  god.  Yet  let  us  say  that  it  is  at  all  times  difficult  to  knovy 
what  he  is,  or  how  to  account  of  him  and  receive  him !  The 
most  significant  feature  in  the  history  of  an  epoch  is  ths 


48  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

manner  it  has  of  welcoming  a  Great  Man.  Ever,  to  the  true 
instincts  of  men,  there  is  something  godlike  in  him.  Whether 
they  shall  take  him  to  be  a  god,  to  be  a  prophet,  or  what  they 
shall  take  him  to  be  ?  that  is  ever  a  grand  question  ;  by  their 
way  of  answering  that,  we  shall  see,  as  through  a  little  win- 
dow, into  the  very  heart  of  these  men's  spiritual  condition. 
For  at  bottom  the  Great  Man,  as  he  comes  from  the  hand  of 
Nature,  is  ever  the  same  kind  of  thing:  Odin,  Luther,  John- 
son, Burns  ;  I  hope  to  make  it  appear  that  these  are  all 
originally  of  one  stuff;  that  only  by  the  world's  reception  of 
them,  and  the  shapes  they  assume,  are  they  so  immeasurably 
diverse.  The  worship  of  Odin  astonishes  us,  —  to  fall  pros- 
trate before  the  Great  Man,  into  deliquiuni  of  love  and 
wonder  over  him,  and  feel  in  their  hearts  that  he  was  a  den- 
izen of  the  skies,  a  god  !  This  was  imperfect  enough  :  but 
to  welcome,  for  example,  a  Burns  as  we  did,  was  that  what 
we  can  call  perfect?  The  most  precious  gift  that  Heaven 
can  give  to  the  Earth  ;  a  man  of  "genius  "  as  we  call  it;  the 
Soul  of  a  Man  actually  sent  down  from  the  skies  with  a 
God's  message  to  us,  —  this  we  waste  away  as  an  idle  arti- 
ficial firework,  sent  to  amuse  us  a  little,  and  sink  it  into 
ashes,  wreck  and  ineffectual ity:  such  reception  of  a  Great 
Man  I  do  not  call  very  perfect  either !  Looking  into  the 
heart  of  the  thing,  one  may  perhaps  call  that  of  Burns  a  still 
uglier  phenomenon,  betokening  still  sadder  imperfections  in 
mankind's  ways,  than  the  Scandinavian  method  itself!  To 
fall  into  mere  unreasoning  deliquhun  of  love  arid  admiration, 
was  not  good;  but  such  unreasoning,  nay  irrational  super- 
cilious no-love  at  all,  is  perhaps  still  worse  ! —  It  is  a  thing 
forever  changing,  this  of  Hero-worship :  different  in  each 
age,  difficult  to  do  well  in  any  age.  Indeed,  the  heart  of  the 
yyhole  business  of  the  age,  one  may  say,  is  to  do  it  well. 
We  have  chosen  Mahomet  not  as  the  most  eminent  Proph* 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  FRO TH ET.  49 

et ;  but  as  the  one  we  are  freest  to  speak  of.  He  is  by  no 
means  the  truest  of  Prophets ;  but  I  do  esteem  him  a  true 
one.  Farther,  as  there  is  no  danger  of  our  becoming,  any  of 
us,  Mahometans,  I  mean  to  say  all  the  good  of  him  I  justly 
can.  It  is  the  way  to  get  at  his  secret:  let  us  try  to  under- 
stand what  he  meant  with  the  world ;  what  the  world  meant 
and  means  with  him,  will  then  be  a  more  answerable  ques- 
tion. Our  current  hypothesis  about  Mahomet,  that  he  was 
a  scheming  Impostor,  a  Falsehood  incarnate,  that  his  reli- 
gion is  a  mere  mass  of  quackery  and  fatuity,  begins  really  to 
be  now  untenable  to  any  one.  The  lies  which  well-meaning 
zeal  has  heaped  round  this  man  are  disgraceful  to  ourselves 
only.  When  Pococke  inquired  of  Grotius,  Where  the  proof 
was  of  that  story  of  the  pigeon,  trained  to  pick  peas  from 
Mahomet's  ear,  and  pass  for  an  angel  dictating  to  him  ? 
Grotius  answered  that  there  was  no  proof !  It  is  really  time 
to  dismiss  all  that.  The  word  this  man  spoke  has  been  the 
life-guidance  now  of  a  hundred  and  eighty  millions  of  men 
these  twelve  hundred  years.  These  hundred  and  eighty  mil- 
lions were  made  by  God  as  well  as  we.  A  greater  number 
of  God's  creatures  believe  in  Mahomet's  word  at  this  hour 
than  in  any  other  word  whatever.  Are  we  to  suppose  that  it 
was  a  miserable  piece  of  spiritual  legerdemain,  this  which  so 
many  creatures  of  the  Almighty  have  lived  by  and  died  by  ? 
I,  for  my  part,  cannot  form  any  such  supposition.  I  will 
believe  most  things  sooner  than  that.  One  would  be  entirely 
at  a  loss  what  to  think  of  this  world  at  all,  if  quackery  so 
grew  and  was  sanctioned  here. 

Alas,  such  theories  are  very  lamentable.  If  we  would  at- 
tain to  knowledge  of  any  thing  in  God's  true  Creation,  let  us 
disbelieve  them  wholly !  They  are  the  product  of  an  Age  of 
Scepticism  ;  they  indicate  the  saddest  spiritual  paralysis,  and 
mere  death-life  of  the  souls  of  men :  more  godless  theory,  I 


50  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

think,  was  never  promulgated  in  this  Earth.  A  false  man 
found  a  religion  ?  Why,  a  false  man  cannot  build  a  brick 
house!  If  he  do  not  know  and  follow  truly  the  properties 
of  mortar,  burnt  clay  and  what  else  he  works  in,  it  is  no 
house  that  he  makes,  but  a  rubbish-heap.  It  will  not  stand 
for  twelve  centuries,  to  lodge  a  hundred  and  eighty  millions ; 
it  will  fall  straightway.  A  man  must  conform  himself  to 
Nature's  laws,  be  verily  in  communion  with  Nature  and  the 
truth  of  things,  or  Nature  will  answer  him,  No,  not  at  all ! 
Speciosities  are  specious  —  ah  me  !  —  a  Cagliostro,  many  Cag- 
liostros,  prominent  world-leaders,  do  prosper  by  their  quack- 
ery, for  a  day.  It  is  like  a  forged  bank-note;  they  get  it 
passed  out  of  their  worthless  hands :  others,  not  they,  have 
to  smart  for  it.  Nature  bursts  up  in  fire-flames,  French 
Revolutions  and  suchlike,  proclaiming  with  terrible  veracity 
that  forged  notes  are  forged. 

But  of  a  Great  Man  especially,  of  him  I  will  venture  to 
assert  that  it  is  incredible  he  should  have  been  other  than 
true.  It  seems  to  me  the  primary  foundation  of  him,  and  of 
all  that  can  lie  in  him,  this.  -No  Mirabeau,  Napoleon,  Burns, 
Cromwell,  no  man  adequate  to  do  any  thing,  but  is  first  of  all 
in  right  earnest  about  it;  what  I  call  a  sincere  man.  I  should 
say  sincerity,  a  deep,  great,  genuine  sincerity,  is  the  first 
characteristic  of  all  men  in  any  way  heroic.  Not  the  sincer- 
ity that  calls  itself  sincere ;  ah  no,  that  is  a  very  poor  matter 
indeed ;  —  a  shallow  braggart  conscious  sincerity ;  oftenest 
self-conceit  mainly.  The  Great  Man's  sincerity  is  of  the 
kind  he  cannot  speak  of,  is  not  conscious  of:  nay,  I  suppose, 
he  is  conscious  rather  of  ///sincerity ;  for  what  man  can  walk 
accurately  by  the  law  of  truth  for  one  day  ?  No,  the  Great 
Man  does  not  boast  himself  sincere,  far  from  that;  perhaps 
does  not  ask  himself  if  he  is  so :  I  would  say  rather,  his 
sincerity  does  not  depend  on  himself ;  he  cannot  help  bein^ 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  5  I 

sincere !  The  great  Fact  of  Existence  is  great  to  him.  Fly 
as  he  will,  he  cannot  get  out  of  the  awful  presence  of  this 
Reality.  His  mind  is  so  made :  he  is  great  by  that,  first  of 
all.  Fearful  and  wonderful,  real  as  Life,  real  as  Death,  is 
this  Universe  to  him.  Though  all  men  should  forget  its 
truth,  and  walk  in  a  vain  show,  he  cannot.  At  all  moments 
the  Flame-image  glares  in  upon  him ;  undeniable,  there,  there ! 
—  I  wish  you  to  take  this  as  my  primary  definition  of  a  Great 
Man.  A  little  man  may  have  this,  it  is  competent  to  all  men 
that  God  has  made :  but  a  Great  Man  cannot  be  without  it. 

Such  a  man  is  what  we  call  an  original  man ;  he  comes  to 
us  at  first-hand.  A  messenger  he,  sent  from  the  Infinite  Un- 
known with  tidings  to  us.  We  may  call  him  Poet,  Prophet, 
God;  —  in  one  way  or  other,  we  all  feel  that  the  words  he 
utters  are  as  no  other  man's  words.  Direct  from  the  Inner 
Fact  of  things ;  —  he  lives,  and  has  to  live,  in  daily  commun- 
ion with  that.  Hearsays  cannot  hide  it  from  him ;  he  is 
blind,  homeless,  miserable,  following  hearsays :  it  glares  in 
upon  him.  Really  his  utterances,  are  they  not  a  kind  of 
"  revelation ;  "  —  what  we  must  call  such  for  want  of  some 
other  name  ?  It  is  from  the  heart  of  the  world  that  he  comes ; 
he  is  portion  of  the  primal  reality  of  things.  God  has  made 
many  revelations:  but  this  man  too,  has  not  God  made  him, 
the  latest  and  newest  of  all?  The  "inspiration  of  the  Al- 
mighty giveth  him  understanding : "  we  must  listen  before 
all  to  him. 

This  Mahomet,  then,  we  will  in  no  wise  consider  as  an 
Inanity  and  Theatricality,  a  poor  conscious  ambitious 
schemer;  we  cannot  conceive  him  so.  The  rude  message 
he  delivered  was  a  real  one  withal;  an  earnest  confused 
voice  from  the  unknown  Deep.  The  man's  words  were  not 
false,  nor  his  workings  here  below;  no  Inanity  and  Simula- 


52  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

crum ;  a  fiery  mass  of  Life  cast  up  from  the  great  bosom  of 
Nature  herself.  To  kindle  the  world;  the  world's  Maker 
had  ordered  it  so.  Neither  can  the  faults,  imperfections, 
insincerities  even,  of  Mahomet,  if  such  were  never  so  well 
proved  against  him,  shake  this  primary  fact  about  him. 

On  the  whole,  we  make  too  much  of  faults ;  the  details 
of  the  business  hide  the  real  centre  of  it.  Faults  ?  The 
greatest  of  faults,  I  should  say,  is  to  be  conscious  of  none. 
Readers  of  the  Bible  above  all,  one  would  think,  might 
know  better.  Who  is  called  there  "the  man  according  to 
God's  own  heart"?  David,  the  Hebrew  King,  had  fallen 
into  sins  enough ;  blackest  crimes  ;  there  was  no  want  of 
sins.  And  thereupon  the  unbelievers  sneer  and  ask,  Is  this 
your  man  according  to  God's  heart?  The  sneer,  I  must 
say,  seems  to  me  but  a  shallow  one.  What  are  faults,  what 
are  the  outward  details  of  a  life :  if  the  inner  secret  of  it, 
the  remorse,  temptations,  true,  often-baffled,  never-ended 
struggle  of  it,  be  forgotten  ?  "  It  is  not  in  man  that  walketh 
to  direct  his  steps."  Of  all  acts,  is  not,  for  a  man,  repent- 
ance the  most  divine  ?  The  deadliest  sin,  I  say,  were  that 
same  supercilious  consciousness  of  no  sin  ;  —  that  is  death ; 
the  heart  so  conscious  is  divorced  from  sincerity,  humility 
and  fact ;  is  dead :  it  is  "  pure  "  as  dead  dry  sand  is  pure.  ) 
David's  life  and  history,  as  written  for  us  in  those  Psalms  of 
his,  I  consider  to  be  the  truest  emblem  ever  given  of  a  man's 
moral  progress  and  warfare  here  below.  All  earnest  souls 
will  ever  discern  in  it  the  faithful  struggle  of  an  earnest 
human  soul  towards  what  is  good  and  best.  Struggle  often 
baffled,  sore  baffled,  down  as  into  entire  wreck ;  yet  a  strug- 
gle never  ended;  ever,  with  tears,  repentance,  true  uncon- 
querable purpose,  begun  anew.  Poor  human  nature!  Is 
not  a  man's  walking,  in  truth,  always  that :  "a  succession  of 
falls"?     Man  can  do  no  other.     In  this  wild  element  of  a 


THE  HERO   AS  PROPHET.  53 

Life,  he  has  to  struggle  onwards  ;  now  fallen,  deep-abased ; 
and  ever,  with  tears,  repentance,  with  bleeding  heart,  he  has 
to  rise  again,  struggle  again  still  onwards.  That  his  strug- 
gle be  a  faithful  unconquerable  one :  that  is  the  question  ot 
questions.  We  will  put  up  with  manj  sad  details,  if  the 
soul  of  it  were  true.  Details  by  themselves  will  never  teach 
us  what  it  is.  I  believe  we  misestimate  Mahomet's  faults 
even  as  faults :  but  the  secret  of  him  will  never  be  got  by 
dwelling  there.  We  will  leave  all  this  behind  us  ;  and  assur- 
ing ourselves  that  he  did  mean  some  true  thing,  ask  candidly 
what  it  was  or  might  be. 

These  Arabs  Mahomet  was  born  among  are  certainly  a 
notable  people.  Their  country  itself  is  notable  ;  the  fit  hal> 
itation  for  such  a  race.  Savage  inaccessible  rock-mountains, 
great  grim  deserts,  alternating  with  beautiful  strips  of  ver- 
dure :  wherever  water  is,  there  is  greenness,  beauty ;  odor- 
iferous balm-shrubs,  date-trees,  frankincense-trees.  Consider 
that  wide  waste  horizon  of  sand,  empty,  silent,  like  a  sand- 
sea,  dividing  habitable  place  from  habitable.  You  are  all 
alone  there,  left  alone  with  the  Universe  ;  by  day  a  fierce  sun 
blazing  down  on  it  with  intolerable  radiance ;  by  night  the 
great  deep  Heaven  with  its  stars.  Such  a  country  is  fit  for 
a  swift-handed,  deep-hearted  race  of  men.  There  is  some- 
thing most  agile,  active,  and  yet  most  meditative,  enthusi- 
astic in  the  Arab  character.  The  Persians  are  called  the 
French  of  the  East;  we  will  call  the  Arabs  Oriental  Italians. 
A  gifted  noble  people ;  a  people  of  wild  strong  feelings,  and 
of  iron  restraint  over  these :  the  characteristic  of  noble- 
mindedness,  of  genius.  The  wild  Bedouin  welcomes  the 
stranger  to  his  tent,  as  one  having  right  to  all  that  is  there ; 
were  it  his  worst  enemy,  he  will  slay  his  foal  to  treat  him, 
will  serve  him  with  sacred  hospitality  for  three  days,  will  set 


54  LECTURES  OAT  HEROES. 

him  fairly  on  his  way;  — and  then,  by  another  law  as  sacred, 
kill  him  if  he  can.  In  words  too,  as  in  action.  They  are 
not  a  loquacious  people,  taciturn  rather;  but  eloquent,  gifted, 
when  they  do  speak.  An  earnest,  truthful  kind  of  men. 
They  are,  as  we  know,  of  Jewish  kindred:  but  with  that 
deadly  terrible  earnestness  of  the  Jews  they  seem  to  combine 
something  graceful,  brilliant,  which  is  not  Jewish.  They 
had  "  Poetic  contests "  among  them  before  the  time  of 
Mahomet.  Sale  says,  at  Ocadh,  in  the  South  of  Arabia, 
there  were  yearly  fairs,  and  there,  when  the  merchandising 
was  done,  Poets  sang  for  prizes ;  the  wild  people  gathered 
to  hear  that. 

One  Jewish  quality  these  Arabs  manifest ;  the  outcome  of 
many  or  of  all  high  qualities  :  what  we  may  call  religiosity. 
From  of  old  they  had  been  zealous  worshippers,  according  to 
their  light.  They  worshipped  the  stars,  as  Sabeans ;  wor- 
shipped many  natural  objects,  —  recognized  them  as  symbols, 
immediate  manifestations,  of  the  Maker  of  Nature.  It  was 
wrong  ;  and  yet  not  wholly  wrong.  All  God's  works  are 
still  in  a  sense  symbols  of  God.  Do  we  not,  as  I  urged, 
still  account  it  a  merit  to  recognize  a  certain  inexhaustible 
significance,  "poetic  beauty"  as  we  name  it,  in  all  natural 
objects  whatsoever?  A  man  is  a  poet,  and  honored,  for 
doing  that,  and  speaking  or  singing  it,  —  a  kind  of  diluted 
worship.  They  had  many  Prophets,  these  Arabs ;  Teachers 
each  to  his  tribe,  each  according  to  the  light  he  had.  But 
indeed,  have  we  not  from  of  old  the  noblest  of  proofs,  still 
palpable  to  every  one  of  us,  of  what  devoutness  and  noble- 
mindedness  had  dwelt  in  these  rustic  thoughtful  peoples  ? 
Biblical  critics  seem  agreed  that  our  own  Book  of  Job  was 
written  in  that  region  of  the  world.  I  call  that,  apart  from 
all  theories  about  it,  one  of  the  grandest  things  ever  written 
with  pen.     One  feels,  indeed,  as  if  it  were  not  Hebrew ;  such 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  55 

a  noble  universality,  different  from  noble  patriotism  or  sec- 
tarianism, reigns  in  it.  A  noble  Book;  all  men's  Book!  It 
is  our  first,  oldest  statement  of  the  never-ending  Problem,  —  , 
man's  destiny,  and  God's  ways  with  him  here  in  this  earth. 
And  all  in  such  free  flowing  outlines  ;  grand  in  its  sincerity, 
in  its  simplicity;  in  its  epic  melody,  and  repose  of  reconcile- 
ment. There  is  the  seeing  eye,  the  mildly  understanding 
heart.  So  true  every  way ;  true  eyesight  and  vision  for  all 
things;  material  things  no  less  than  spiritual :  the  Horse, — 
"hast  thou  clothed  his  neck  with  thunder t ' '' —  he  "  laughs 
at  the  shaking  of  the  spear !  "  Such  living  likenesses  were 
never  since  drawn.  Sublime  sorrow,  sublime  reconciliation ; 
oldest  choral  melody  as  of  the  heart  of  mankind ;  —  so  soft, 
and  great ;  as  the  summer  midnight,  as  the  world  with  its 
seas  and  stars!  \  There  is  nothing  written,  I  think,  in  the 
Bible  or  out  of  it,  of  equal  literary  merit.  \ 

To  the  idolatrous  Arabs  one  of  the  most  ancient  universal 
objects  of  worship  was  that  Black  Stone,  still  kept  in  the 
building  called  Caabah  at  Mecca.  Diodorus  Siculus  men- 
tions this  Caabah  in  a  way  not  to  be  mistaken,  as  the  oldest, 
most  honored  temple  in  his  time ;  that  is,  some  half-century 
before  our  era.  Silvestre  de  Sacy  says  there  is  some  likeli- 
hood that  the  Black  Stone  is  an  aerolite.  In  that  case,  some 
man  might  see  it  fall  out  of  Heaven  !  It  stands  now  beside 
the  Well  Zemzem;  the  Caabah  is  built  over  both.  A  Well 
is  in  all  places  a  beautiful  affecting  object,  gushing  out  like 
life  from  the  hard  earth;  —  still  more  so  in  those  hot  dry 
countries,  where  it  is  the  first  condition  of  being.  The  Well 
Zemzem  has  its  name  from  the  bubbling  sound  of  the  waters, 
zem-zem;  they  think  it  is  the  Well  which  Hagar  found  with 
her  little  Ishmael  in  the  wilderness  :  the  aerolite  and  it  have 
been  sacred  now,  and  had  a  Caabah  over  them,  for  thousands 
of  years.     A  curious  object,  that  Caabah  !     There  it  stands 


56  LECTURES  OiV  HEROES. 

at  this  hour,  in  the  black  cloth-covering  the  Sultan  sends 
it  yearly;  "twenty-seven  cubits  high;"  with  circuit,  with 
double  circuit  of  pillars,  with  festoon-rows  of  lamps  and 
quaint  ornaments  :  the  lamps  will  be  lighted  again  this  night, 
—  to  glitter  again  under  the  stars.  An  authentic  fragment 
of  the  oldest  Past.  It  is  the  Keblah  of  all  Moslem :  from 
Delhi  all  onwards  to  Morocco,  the  eyes  of  innumerable 
praying  men  are  turned  towards  //,  five  times,  this  day  and 
all  days  :  one  of  the  notablest  centres  in  the  Habitation  of 
Men. 

It  had  been  from  the  sacredness  attached  to  this  Caabah 
Stone  and  Hagar's  Well,  from  the  pilgrimings  of  all  tribes 
of  Arabs  thither,  that  Mecca  took  its  rise  as  a  Town.  A 
great  town  once,  though  much  decayed  now.  It  has  no  nat- 
ural advantage  for  a  town  ;  stands  in  a  sandy  hollow  amid 
bare  barren  hills,  at  a  distance  from  the  sea ;  its  provisions, 
its  very  bread,  have  to  be  imported.  But  so  many  pilgrims 
needed  lodgings  :  and  then  all  places  of  pilgrimage  do,  from 
the  first,  become  places  of  trade.  The  first  day  pilgrims 
meet,  merchants  have  also  met :  where  men  see  themselves 
assembled  for  one  object,  they  find  that  they  can  accomplish 
other  objects  which  depend  on  meeting  together.  Mecca 
became  the  Fair  of  all  Arabia,  and  thereby  indeed  the 
chief  staple  and  warehouse  of  whatever  Commerce  there 
was  between  the  Indian  and  the  Western  countries,  Syria, 
Egypt,  even  Italy.  It  had  at  one  time  a  population  of 
100,000;  buyers,  forwarders  of  those  Eastern  and  Western 
products  ;  importers  for  their  own  behoof  of  provisions  and 
corn.  The  government  was  a  kind  of  irregular  aristocratic 
republic,  not  without  a  touch  of  theocracy.  Ten  Men  of  a 
chief  tribe,  chosen  in  some  rough  way,  were  Governors  of 
Mecca,  and  Keepers  of  the  Caabah.  The  Koreish  were  the 
chief  tribe  in  Mahomet's  time  ;  his  own  family  was  of  that 


1 1 

o  < 

a  I 


11 


UBftMW 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


T//J*  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  57 

tribe.  The  rest  of  the  Nation,  fractioned  and  cut  asunder 
by  deserts,  lived  under  similar  rude  patriarchal  governments 
by  one  or  several :  herdsmen,  carriers,  traders,  generally 
robbers  too  ;  being  oftenest  at  war  one  with  another,  or  with 
all :  held  together  by  no  open  bond,  if  it  were  not  this  meet- 
ing at  the  Cabaah,  where  all  forms  of  Arab  Idolatry  assem- 
bled in  common  adoration ;  —  held  mainly  by  the  inward 
indissoluble  bond  of  a  common  blood  and  language.  In 
this  way  had  the  Arabs  lived  for  long  ages,  unnoticed  by  the 
world  ;  a  people  of  great  qualities,  unconsciously  waiting  for 
the  day  when  they  should  become  notable  to  all  the  world. 
Their  Idolatries  appear  to  have  been  in  a  tottering  state ; 
much  was  getting  into  confusion  and  fermentation  among 
them.  Obscure  tidings  of  the  most  important  Event  ever 
transacted  in  this  world,  the  Life  and  Death  of  the  Divine 
Man  in  Judea,  at  once  the  symptom  and  cause  of  immeasur- 
able change  to  all  people  in  the  world,  had  in  the  course 
of  centuries  reached  into  Arabia  too  ;  and  could  not  but,  of 
itself,  have  produced  fermentation  there. 

It  was  among  this  Arab  people,  so  circumstanced,  in  the 
year  570  of  our  Era,  that  the  man  Mahomet  was  born.  He 
was  of  the  family  of  Hashem,  of  the  Koreish  tribe  as  we  said  ; 
though  poor,  connected  with  the  chief  persons  of  his  country. 
Almost  at  his  birth  he  lost  his  Father;  at  the  age  of  six 
years  his  Mother  too,  a  woman  noted  for  her  beauty,  her 
worth  and  sense  :  he  fell  to  the  charge  of  his  Grandfather,  an 
old  man,  a  hundred  years  old.  A  good  old  man  :  Mahomet's 
Father,  Abdallah,  had  been  his  youngest  favorite  son.  He 
saw  in  Mahomet,  with  his  old  life-worn  eyes,  a  century 
old,  the  lost  Abdallah  come  back  again,  all  that  was  left  of 
Abdallah.  He  loved  the  little  orphan  Boy  greatly  ;  used  to 
say,  They  must  take  care  of  that  beautiful  little  Boy,  nothing 
in  their  kindred  was  more  precious  than  he.     At  his  death, 


$S  LECTURES  OAT  HEROES. 

while  the  boy  was  still  but  two  years  old,  he  left  him  in  charge 
to  Abu  Thaleb  the  eldest  of  the  Uncles,  as  to  him  that  now 
was  head  of  the  house.  By  this  Uncle,  a  just  and  rational 
man  as  every  thing  betokens,  Mahomet  was  brought  up  in  the 
best  Arab  way. 

Mahomet,  as  he  grew  up,  accompanied  his  Uncle  on  trad 
ing  journeys  and  suchlike  ;  in  his  eighteenth  year  one  finds 
him  a  fighter  following  his  Uncle  in  war.  But  perhaps  the 
most  significant  of  all  his  journeys  is  one  we  find  noted  as  of 
some  years'  earlier  date  :  a  journey  to  the  Fairs  of  Syria. 
The  young  man  here  first  came  in  contact  with  a  quite  for- 
eign world,  —  with  one  foreign  element  of  endless  moment 
to  him  :  the  Christian  Religion.  I  know  not  what  to  make 
of  that  "  Sergius,  the  Nestorian  Monk,"  whom  Abu  Thaleb 
and  he  are  said  to  have  lodged  with  ;  or  how  much  any  monk 
could  have  taught  one  still  so  young.  Probably  enough  it  is 
greatly  exaggerated,  this  of  the  Nestorian  Monk.  Mahomet 
was  only  fourteen ;  had  no  language  but  his  own  :  much  in 
Syria  must  have  been  a  strange  unintelligible  whirlpool  to 
him.  But  the  eyes  of  the  lad  were  open ;  glimpses  of  many 
things  wrould  doubtless  be  taken  in,  and  lie  very  enigmatic 
as  yet,  which  were  to  ripen  in  a  strange  way  into  views,  into 
beliefs  and  insights,  one  day.  These  journeys  to  Syria  were 
probably  the  beginning  of  much  to  Mahomet. 

One  other  circumstance  we  must  not  forget:  that  he  had 
no  school-learning;  of  the  thing  we  call  school-learning  none 
at  all.  The  art  of  writing  was  but  just  introduced  into 
Arabia ;  it  seems  to  be  the  true  opinion  that  Mahomet  never 
could  write !  Life  in  the  Desert,  with  its  experiences,  was 
all  his  education.  What  of  this  infinite  Universe  he,  from 
his  dim  place,  with  his  own  eyes  and  thoughts,  could  take  in, 
so  much  and  no  more  of  it  was  he  to  know.  Curious,  if  we 
will  reflect  on  it,  this  of  having  no  books.     Except  by  what 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  59 

he  could  see  for  himself,  or  hear  of  by  uncertain  rumor  of 
speech  in  the  obscure  Arabian  Desert,  he  could  know  noth- 
ing. The  wisdom  that  had  been  before  him  or  at  a  distance 
from  him  in  the  world,  was  in  a  manner  as  good  as  not  there 
for  him.  Of  the  great  brother  souls,  flame-beacons  through 
so  many  lands  and  times,  no  one  directly  communicates  with 
this  great  soul.  He  is  alone  there,  deep  down  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Wilderness  ;  has  to  grow  up  so,  —  alone  with  Nature 
and  his  own  Thoughts. 

But,  from  an  early  age,  he  had  been  remarked  as  a  thought- 
ful man.  His  companions  named  him  "  Al  Amin,  The  Faith- 
ful." A  man  of  truth  and  fidelity;  true  in  what  he  did,  in 
what  he  spake  and  thought.  They  noted  that  he  always 
meant  something.  A  man  rather  taciturn  in  speech  ;  silent 
when  there  was  nothing  to  be  said  ;  but  pertinent,  wise,  sin- 
cere, when  he  did  speak ;  always  throwing  light  on  the  mat- 
ter. This  is  the  only  sort  of  speech  worth  speaking ! 
Through  life  we  find  him  to  have  been  regarded  as  an  alto- 
gether solid,  brotherly,  genuine  man.  A  serious,  sincere 
character  ;  yet  amiable,  cordial,  companionable,  jocose  even  ; 
—  a  good  laugh  in  him  withal :  there  are  men  whose  laugh  is 
as  untrue  as  anything  about  them  ;  who  cannot  laugh.  One 
hears  of  Mahomet's  beauty :  his  fine  sagacious  honest  face, 
brown  florid  complexion,  beaming  black  eyes  ;  —  I  somehow 
like  too  that  vein  on  the  brow,  which  swelled  up  black  when 
he  was  in  anger :  like  the  M  horseshoe  vein  "  in  Scott's  Red- 
gauntlet.  It  was  a  kind  of  feature  in  the  Hashem  family, 
this  black  swelling  vein  in  the  brow  ;  Mahomet  had  it  prom- 
inent, as  would  appear.  A  spontaneous,  passionate,  yet  just, 
true-meaning  man  !  Full  of  wild  faculty,  fire  and  light ;  of 
wild  worth,  all  uncultured ;  working  out  his  life-task  in  the 
depths  of  the  Desert  there. 

How  he  was  placed  with  Kadijah,  a  rich  Widow,  as  her 


60  LECTURES  OiV  HEROES. 

Steward,  and  travelled  in  her  business,  again  to  the  Fairs  of 
Syria  ;  how  he  managed  all,  as  one  can  well  understand,  with 
fidelity,  adroitness  ;  how  her  gratitude,  her  regard  for  him, 
grew  :  the  story  of  their  marriage  is  altogether  a  graceful 
intelligible  one,  as  told  us  by  the  Arab  authors.  He  was 
twenty-five ;  she  forty,  though  still  beautiful.  He  seems  to 
have  lived  in  a  most  affectionate,  peaceable,  wholesome  way 
with  this  wedded  benefactress  ;  loving  her  truly,  and  her 
alone.  It  goes  greatly  against  the  impostor  theory,  the  fact 
that  he  lived  in  this  entirely  unexceptionable,  entirely  quiet 
and  commonplace  way,  till  the  heat  of  his  years  was  done. 
He  was  forty  before  he  talked  of  any  mission  from  Heaven. 
All  his  irregularities,  real  and  supposed,  date  from  after  his 
fiftieth  year,  when  the  good  Kadijah  died.  All  his  "  ambi- 
tion," seemingly,  had  been,  hitherto,  to  live  an  honest  life; 
his  "  fame,"  the  mere  good  opinion  of  neighbors  that  knew 
him,  had  been  sufficient  hitherto.  Not  till  he  was  already 
getting  old,  the  prurient  heat  of  his  life  all  burnt  out,  axi&fteace 
growing  to  be  the  chief  thing  this  world  could  give  him, 
did  he  start  on  the  "  career  of  ambition ;  "  and,  belying  all 
his  past  character  and  existence,  set  up  as  a  wretched  empty 
charlatan  to  acquire  what  he  could  now  no  longer  enjoy ! 
For  my  share,  I  have  no  faith  whatever  in  that. 

Ah  no  :  this  deep-hearted  Son  of  the  Wilderness,  with  his 
beaming  black  eyes  and  open  social  deep  soul,  had  other 
thoughts  in  him  than  ambition.  A  silent  great  soul ;  he  was 
one  of  those  who  cannot  but  be  in  earnest ;  whom  Nature 
herself  has  appointed  to  be  sincere.  While  others  walk  in 
formulas  and  hearsays,  contented  enough  to  dwell  there,  this 
man  could  not  screen  himself  in  formulas  ;  he  was  alone  with 
his  own  soul  and  the  reality  of  things.  The  great  Mystery 
of  Existence,  as  I  said,  glared  in  upon  him,  with  its  terrors, 
with  its  splendors;  no  hearsays  could  hide  that  unspeaka- 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  6 1 

ble  fact,  "  Here  ami!"  Such  sincerity,  as  we  named  it,  has 
in  very  truth  something  of  divine.  The  word  of  such  a  man  is 
a  Voice  direct  from  Nature's  own  Heart.  Men  do  and  must 
listen  to  that  as  to  nothing  else  ;  —  all  else  is  wind  in  com- 
parison. From  of  old,  a  thousand  thoughts,  in  his  pilgrimings 
and  wanderings,  had  been  in  this  man  :  What  am  1  ?  What  is 
this  unfathomable  Thing  I  live  in,  which  men  name  Universe  ? 
What  is  Life ;  what  is  Death  ?  What  am  I  to  believe  ? 
What  am  I  to  do  ?  The  grim  rocks  of  Mount  Hara,  of  Mount 
Sinai,  the  stern  sandy  solitudes  answered  not.  The  great 
Heaven  rolling  silent  overhead,  with  its  blue-glancing  stars, 
answered  not.  There  was  no  answer.  The  man's  own  soul, 
and  what  of  God's  inspiration  dwelt  there,  had  to  answer! 

It  is  the  thing  which  all  men  have  to  ask  themselves  ;  which 
we  too  have  to  ask,  and  answer.  This  wild  man  felt  it  to  be 
of  infinite  moment  ;  all  other  things  of  no  moment  whatever 
in  comparison.  The  jargon  of  argumentative  Greek  Sects, 
vague  traditions  of  Jews,  the  stupid  routine  of  Arab  Idola- 
try :  there  was  no  answer  in  these.  A  Hero,  as  I  repeat,  has 
this  first  distinction,  which  indeed  we  may  call  first  and  last, 
the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  his  whole  Heroism,  That  he  looks 
through  the  shows  of  things  into  things.  \  Use  and  wont, 
respectable  hearsay,  respectable  formula  :  all  these  are  good, 
or  are  not  good.  There  is  something  behind  and  beyond  all 
these,  which  all  these  must  correspond  with,  be  the  image 
of,  or  they' are  —  Idolatries  j  "  bits  of  black  wood  pretending 
to  be  God ;  "  to  the  earnest  soul  a  mockery  and  abomination. 
Idolatries  never  so  gilded,  waited  on  by  heads  of  the  Koreish, 
will  do  nothing  for  this  man.  Though  all  men  walk  by  them, 
what  good  is  it?  The  great  Reality  stands  glaring  there 
upon  him.  He  there  has  to  answer  it,  or  perish  miserably 
Now,  even  now,  or  else  through  all  Eternity  never !  Answer 
it ;  thou  must  find  an  answer.  —  Ambition,  ?    What  coujcl  all 


62  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Arabia  do  for  this  man;  with  the  crown  of  Greek  Heraclius, 
of  Persian  Chosroes,  and  all  crowns  in  the  Earth ;  —  what 
could  they  all  do  for  him  ?  It  was  not  of  the  Earth  he  wanted 
to  hear  tell;  it  was  of  the  Heaven  above  and  of  the  Hell 
beneath.  All  crowns  and  sovereignties  whatsoever,  where 
would  they  in  a  few  brief  years  be  ?  To  be  Sheik  of  M.cca 
or  Arabia,  and  have  a  bit  of  gilt  wood  put  into  your  hand,  — 
will  that  be  one's  salvation  ?  I  decidedly  think,  not.  We 
will  leave  it  all  together,  this  impostor  hypothesis,  as  not 
credible ;  not  very  tolerable  even,  worthy  chiefly  of  dismissal 
by  us. 

Mahomet  had  been  wont  to  retire  yearly,  during  the  month 
Ramadhan,  into  solitude  and  silence ;  as  indeed  was  the 
Arab  custom;  a  praiseworthy  custom,  which  such  a  man, 
above  all,  would  find  natural  and  useful.  Communing  with 
his  own  heart,  in  the  silence  of  the  mountains ;  himself 
silent ;  open  to  the  "  small  still  voices : "  it  was  a  right 
natural  custom !  Mahomet  was  in  his  fortieth  year,  when 
having  withdrawn  to  a  cavern  in  Mount  Hara,  near  Mecca, 
during  this  Ramadhan,  to  pass  the  month  in  prayer,  and 
meditation  on  those  great  questions,  he  one  day  told  his  wife 
Kadijah,  who  with  his  household  was  with  him  or  near  him 
this  year,  That  by  the  unspeakable  special  favor  of  Heaven 
he  had  now  found  it  all  out ;  was.  in  doubt  and  darkness  no 
longer,  but  saw  it  all.  That  all  these  Idols  and  Formulas 
were  nothing,  miserable  bits  of  wood ;  that  there  was  One 
God  in  and  over  all;  and  we  must  leave  all  Idols,  and  look 
to  Him.  That  God  is  great;  and  that  there  is  nothing  else 
great !  He  is  the  Reality.  Wooden  Idols  are  not  real ;  He 
is  real.  He  made  us  at  first,  sustains  us  yet;  we  and  all 
things  are  but  the  shadow  of  Him;  a  transitory  garment 
veiling  the  Eternal  Splendor.  "Allah  akbar\  God  is 
great ;  "  —  and  then  also  "  Islam"  That  we  must  submit  to 


THE  HERO   AS  PROPHET.  63 

God.  That  our  whole  strength  lies  in  resigned  submission 
to  Him,  whatsoever  He  do  to  us.  For  this  world,  and  for 
the  other !  The  thing  He  sends  to  us,  were  it  death  and 
worse  than  death,  shall  be  good,  shall  be  best;  we  resign 
ourselves  to  God.  —  "If  this  be  Islam"  says  Goethe,  "do 
we  not  all  live  in  Islam  ?  *■  Yes,  all  of  us  that  have  any 
moral  life ;  we  all  live  so.  It  has  ever  been  held  the  highest 
wisdom  for  a  man  not  merely  to  submit  to  Necessity, — 
Necessity  will  make  him  submit,  —  but  to  know  and  believe  , 
well  that  the  stern  thing  which  Necessity  had  ordered  was 
the  wisest,  the  best,  the  thing  wanted  there.  To  cease  his 
frantic  pretension  of  scanning  this  great  God's  World  in  his 
small  fraction  of  a  brain  ;  to  know  that  it  //^d?  verily,  though 
deep  beyond  his  soundings,  a  Just  Law,  that  the  soul  of  it 
was  Good;  —  that  his  part  in  it  was  to  conform  to  the  Law 
of  the  Whole,  and  in  devout  silence  follow  that;  not  ques- 
tioning it,  obeying  it  as  unquestionable. 

I  say,  this  is  yet  the  only  true  morality  known.  A  man  is 
right  and  invincible,  virtuous  and  on  the  road  towards  sure 
conquest,  precisely  while  he  joins  himself  to  the  great  deep 
Law  of  the  World,  in  spite  of  all  superficial  laws,  temporary 
appearances,  profit-and  loss  calculations;  he  is  victorious 
while  he  co-operates  with  that  great  central  Law,  not  vic- 
torious otherwise:  —and  surely  his  first  chance  of  co-oper- 
ating with  it,  or  getting  into  the  course  of  it,  is  to  know  with 
his  whole  soul  that  it  is;  that  it  is  good,  and  alone  good ! 
This  is  the  soul  of  Islam;  it  is  properly  the  soul  of  Chris- 
tianity;—  for  Islam  is  definable  as  a  confused  form  of 
Christianity;  had  Christianity  not  been,  neither  had  it  been. 
Christianity  also  commands  us,  before  all,  to  be  resigned  to 
God.  We  are  to  take  no  counsel  with  flesh-and-blood  ;  give 
ear  to  no  vain  cavils,  vain  sorrows  and  wishes;  to  know  that 
we  know  nothing ;  that  the  worst  and  crudest  to  our  eyes  is 


64  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

not  what  it  seems ;  that  we  have  to  receive  whatsoever 
befalls  us  as  sent  from  God  above,  and  say,  It  is  good  and 
wise,  God  is  great !  "  Though  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust 
in  Him."  Islam  means  in  its  way  Denial  of  Self,  Annihila- 
tion of  Self.  This  is  yet  the  highest  Wisdom  that  Heaven 
has  revealed  to  our  Earth. 

Such  light  had  come,  as  it  could,  to  illuminate  the  darkness 
of  this  wild  Arab  soul.  A  confused  dazzling  splendor  as  of 
life  and  Heaven,  in  the  great  darkness  which  threatened  to 
be  death  :  he  called  it  revelation  and  the  angel  Gabriel ;  — 
who  of  us  yet  can  know  what  to  call  it?  It  is  the  "inspi- 
ration of  the  Almighty  that  giveth  us  understanding.  To 
know ;  to  get  into  the  truth  of  any  thing,  is  ever  a  mystic 
act,  —  of  which  the  best  Logics  can  but  babble  on  the  sur- 
face. "Is  not  Belief  the  true  god-announcing  Miracle?" 
says  Novalis.  —  That  Mahomet's  whole  soul,  set  in  flame 
with  this  grand  Truth  vouchsafed  him,  should  feel  as  if  it 
were  important  and  the  only  important  thing,  was  very 
natural.  That  Providence  had  unspeakably  honored  him 
by  revealing  it,  saving  him  from  death  and  darkness  ;  that 
he  therefore  was  bound  to  make  known  the  same  to  all 
creatures  :  this  is  what  was  meant  by  "  Mahomet  is  the 
Prophet  of  God ; "  this  too  is  not  without  its  true  mean- 
ing. 

The  good  Kadijah,  we  can  fancy,  listened  to  him  with 
wonder,  with  doubt :  at  length  she  answered :  Yes,  it  was 
true  this  that  he  said.  One  can  fancy  too  the  boundless 
gratitude  of  Mahomet;  and  how  of  all  the  kindnesses  she 
had  done  him,  this  of  believing  the  earnest  struggling  word 
he  now  spoke  was  the  greatest.  "  It  is  certain,"  says 
Novalis,  "  my  Conviction  gains  infinitely,  the  moment 
another  soul  will  believe  in  it."  It  is  a  boundless  favor.  — 
JJe   never    forgot    this    good    Kadijah.     Long   afterwards, 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE   HERO  AS  PROPHET.  65 

Ayesha  his  young  favorite  wife,  a  woman  who  indeed  dis- 
tinguished herself  among  the  Moslem,  by  all  manner  of 
qualities,  through  her  whole  long  life  ;  this  young  brilliant 
Ayesha  was,  one  day,  questioning  him  :  "  Now  am  not  I 
better  than  Kadijah  ?  She  was  a  widow  ;  old,  and  had  lost 
her  looks  :  you  love  me  better  than  you  did  her  ?  "  —  "  No, 
by  Allah  !  "  answered  Mahomet :  "  No,  by  Allah  !  She 
believed  in  me  when  none  else  would  believe.  In  the  whole 
world  I  had  but  one  friend,  and  she  was  that !  "  —  Seid,  his 
Slave,  also  believed  in  him;  these  with  his  young  Cousin 
Ali,  Abu  Thaleb's  son,  were  his  first  converts. 

He  spoke  of  his  Doctrine  to  this  man  and  that ;  but  the 
most  treated  it  with  ridicule,  with  indifference  ;  in  three 
years,  I  think,  he  had  gained  but  thirteen  followers.  His 
progress  was  slow  enough.  His  encouragement  to  go  on, 
was  altogether  the  usual  encouragement  that  such  a  man  in 
such  a  case  meets.  After  some  three  years  of  small  success, 
he  invited  forty  of  his  chief  kindred  to  an  entertainment ; 
and  there  stood  up  and  told  them  what  his  pretension  was  : 
that  he  had  this  thing  to  promulgate  abroad  to  all  men ;  that 
it  was  the  highest  thing,  the  one  thing :  which  of  them 
would  second  him  in  that  ?  Amid  the  doubt  and  silence  of 
all,  young  AH,  as  yet  a  lad  of  sixteen,  impatient  of  the 
silence,  started  up,  and  exclaimed  in  passionate  fierce 
language,  That  he  would  !  The  assembly,  among  whom 
was  Abu  Thaleb,  Ali's  Father,  could  not  be  unfriendly  to 
Mahomet;  yet  the  sight  there,  of  one  unlettered  elderly  man, 
with  a  lad  of  sixteen,  deciding  on  such  an  enterprise  against 
all  mankind,  appeared  ridiculous  to  them;  the  assembly 
broke  up  in  laughter.  Nevertheless  it  proved  not  a  laugh- 
able thing;  it  was  a  very  serious  thing!  As  for  this  young 
Ali,  one  cannot  but  like  him.  A  noble-minded  creature,  as 
he  shows  himself,  now  and  always  afterwards  5  full  of  affeg- 


66  LECTURES   ON  HEROES. 

tion,  of  fiery  daring.  Something  chivalrous  in  him  ;  brave 
as  a  lion ;  yet  with  a  grace,  a  truth  and  affection  worthy  of 
Christian  knighthood.  He  died  by  assassination  in  the 
Mosque  at  Bagdad  ;  a  death  occasioned  by  his  own  generous 
fairness,  confidence  in  the  fairness  of  others  ;  he  said,  If  the 
wound  proved  not  unto  death,  they  must  pardon  the  Assas- 
sin ;  but  if  it  did,  then  they  must  slay  him  straightway,  that 
so  they  two  in  the  same  hour  might  appear  before  God,  and 
see  which  side  of  that  quarrel  was  the  just  one  ! 

Mahomet  naturally  gave  offence  to  the  Koreish,  Keepers, 
of  the  Caabah,  superintendents  of  the  Idols.  One  or  two 
men  of  influence  had  joined  him:  the  thing  spread  slowly, 
but  it  was  spreading.  Naturally  he  gave  offence  to  every- 
body:  Who  is  this  that  pretends  to  be  wiser  than  we  all; 
that  rebukes  us  all,  as  mere  fools  and  worshippers  of  wood  ! 
Abu  Thaleb  the  good  Uncle  spoke  with  him  :  Could  he  not 
be  silent  about  all  that;  believe  it  all  for  himself,  and  not 
trouble  others,  anger  the  chief  men,  endanger  himself  and 
them  all,  talking  of  it?  Mahomet  answered:  If  the  Sun 
stood  on  his  right  hand  and  the  Moon  on  his  left,  ordering 
him  to  hold  his  peace,  he  could  not  obey  !  No  :  there  was 
something  in  this  Truth  he  had  got  which  was  of  Nature 
herself ;  equal  in  rank  to  Sun,  or  Moon,  or  whatsoever  thing 
Nature  had  made.  It  would  speak  itself  there,  so  long  as 
the  Almighty  allowed  it,  in  spite  of  Sun  and  Moon,  and  all 
Koreish  and  all  men  and  things.  It  must  do  that,'  and  could 
do  no  other.  Mahomet  answered  so;  and,  they  say,  "burst 
into  tears."  Burst  into  tears  :  he  felt  that  Abu  Thaleb  was 
good  to  him;  that  the  task  he  had  got  was  no  soft,  but  a 
stern  and  great  one. 

He  went  on  speaking  to  who  would  listen  to  him;  pub- 
lishing his  Doctrine  among  the  pilgrims  as  they  came  to 
Mecca;  gaining  adherents  in  this  place  and  that     Continual 


THE   HERO  AS  PROPHET.  67 

contradiction,  hatred,  open  or  secret  danger,  attended  him. 
His  powerful  relations  protected  Mahomet  himself;  but  by 
and  by,  on  his  own  advice,  all  his  adherents  had  to  quit 
Mecca,  and  seek  refuge  in  Abyssinia  over  the  sea.  The 
Koreish  grew  ever  angrier ;  laid  plots,  and  swore  oaths 
among  them,  to  put  Mahomet  to  death  with  their  own 
hands.  Abu  Thaleb  was  dead,  the  good  Kadijah  was  dead. 
Mahomet  is  not  solicitous  of  sympathy  from  us  ;  but  his  out- 
look at  this  time  was  one  of  the  dismalest.  He  had  to  hide 
in  caverns,  escape  in  disguise;  fly  hither  and  thither;  home- 
less, in  continual  peril  of  his  life.  "  More  than  once  it  seemed 
all  over  with  him  ;  more  than  once  it  turned  on  a  straw,  some 
rider's  horse  taking  fright  or  the  like,  whether  Mahomet  and 
his  Doctrine  had  not  ended  there,  and  not  been  heard  of  at 
all.     But  it  was  not  to  end  so. 

In  the  thirteenth  year  of  his  mission,  finding  his  enemies 
all  banded  against  him,  forty  sworn  men,  one  out  of  every 
tribe,  waiting  to  take  his  life.,  and  no  continuance  possible  at 
Mecca  for  him  any  longer,  Mahomet  fled  to  the  place  then 
called  Yathreb,  where  he  had  gained  some  adherents ;  the 
place  they  now  call  Medina,  or  "  Medinat  al  ATabi,  the  City 
of  the  Prophet,"  from  that  circumstance.  It  lay  some  200 
miles  off,  through  rocks  and  deserts;  not  without  great  diffi- 
culty, in  such  mood  as  we  may  fancy,  he  escaped  thither,  and 
found  welcome.  The  whole  East  dates  its  era  from  this 
Flight,  Hegira  as  they  name  it:  the  Year  1  of  this  Hegira  is 
622  of  our  Era,  the  fifty-third  of  Mahomet's  life.  He  was 
now  becoming  an  old  man;  his  friends  sinking  round  him 
one  by  one ;  his  path  desolate,  encompassed  with  danger : 
unless  he  could  find  hope  in  his  own  heart,  the  outward  face 
of  things  was  but  hopeless  for  him.  It  is  so  with  all  men  in 
the  like  case.  Hitherto  Mahomet  had  professed  to  publish 
his  Religion  by  the  way  of  preaching  and  persuasion  alone 


68  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

But  now,  driven  foully  out  of  his  native  country,  since  unjust 
men  had  not  only  given  no  ear  to  his  earnest  Heaven's  mes- 
sage, the  deep  cry  of  his  heart,  but  would  not  even  let  him 
live  if  he  kept  speaking  it,  —  the  wild  Son  of  the  Desert 
resolved  to  defend  himself,  like  a  man  and  Arab.  If  the 
Koreish  will  have  it  so,  they  shall  have  it.  Tidings,  felt  to 
be  of  infinite  moment  to  them  and  all  men,  they  would  not 
listen  to  these  ;  would  trample  them  down  by  sheer  violence, 
steel  and  murder:  well,  let  steel  try  it  then!  Ten  years 
more  this  Mahomet  had ;  all  of  fighting,  of  breathless  impet- 
uous toil  and  struggle ;  with  what  result  we  know. 

Much  has  been  said  of  Mahomet's  propagating  his  Reli- 
gion by  the  sword.  It  is  no  doubt  far  nobler  what  we  have 
to  boast  of  the  Christian  Religion,  that  it  propagated  itself 
peaceably  in  the  way  of  preaching  and  conviction.  Yet 
withal,  if  we  take  this  for  an  argument  of  the  truth  or  false- 
hood of  a  religion,  there  is  a  radical  mistake  in  it.  The 
sword  indeed  :  but  where  will  you  get  your  sword !  Every 
new  opinion,  at  its  starting,  is  precisely  in  a  minority  of  one. 
In  one  man's  head  alone,  there  it  dwells  as  yet.  One  man 
alone  of  the  whole  world  believes  it ;  there  is  one  man  against 
all  men.  That  he  take  a  sword,  and  try  to  propagate  with 
that,  will  do  little  for  him.  You  must  first  get  your  sword  ! 
On  the  whole,  a  thing  will  propagate  itself  as  it  can.  We  do 
not  find,  of  the  Christian  Religion  either,  that  it  always  dis- 
dained the  sword,  when  once  it  had  got  one.  Charlemagne's 
conversion  of  the  Saxons  was  not  by  preaching.  I  care  little 
about  the  sword :  I  will  allow  a  thing  to  struggle  for  itself  in 
this  world,  with  any  sword  or  tongue  or  implement  it  has,  or 
can  lay  hold  of.  We  will  let  it  preach,  and  pamphleteer,  and 
fight,  and  to  the  uttermost  bestir  itself,  and  do,  beak  and 
claws,  whatsoever  is  in  it;  very  sure  that  it  will,  in  the  long 
run,  conquer  nothing  which  does  not  deserve  to  be  conquered. 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  6Q 

What  is  better  than  itself,  it  cannot  put  away,  but  only  what 
is  worse.  In  this  great  Duel,  Nature  herself  is  umpire,  and 
can  do  no  wrong:  the  thing  which  is  deepest-rooted  in  Na- 
ture, what  we  call  truest,  that  thing  and  not  the  other  will  be 
found  growing  at  last. 

Here  however,  in  reference  to  much  that  there  is  in  Ma- 
homet and  his  success,  we  are  to  remember  what  an  umpire 
Nature  is ;  what  a  greatness,  composure  of  depth  and  toler- 
ance there  is  in  her.  You  take  wheat  to  cast  into  the  Earth's 
bosom :  your  wheat  may  be  mixed  with  chaff,  chopped  straw, 
barn-sweepings,  dust  and  all  imaginable  rubbish;  no  matter: 
you  cast  it  into  the  kind  just  Earth  ;  she  grows  the  wheat, — 
the  whole  rubbish  she  silently  absorbs,  shrouds  //  in,  says 
nothing  of  the  rubbish.  The  yellow  wheat  is  growing  there ; 
the  good  Earth  is  silent  about  all  the  rest,  —  has  silently 
turned  all  the  rest  to  some  benefit  too,  and  makes  no  com- 
plaint about  it !  So -everywhere  in  Nature  !  She  is  true  and 
not  a  lie;  and  yet  so  great,  and  just,  and  motherly  in  her 
truth.  She  requires  of  a  thing  only  that  it  be  genuine  of 
heart;  she  will  protect  it  if  so;  will  not,  if  not  so.  There  is 
a  soul  of  truth  in  all  the  things  she  ever  gave  harbor  to. 
Alas,  is  not  this  the  history  of  all  highest  Truth  that  comes 
or  ever  came  into  the  world?  The  body  of  them  all  is  im- 
perfection, an  element  of  light  in  darkness  :  to  us  they  have 
to  come  embodied  in  mere  Logic,  in  some  merely  scientific 
Theorem  of  the  Universe;  which  cannot hz.  complete;  which 
cannot  but  be  found,  one  day,  ///complete,  erroneous,  and  so 
die  and  disappear.  The  body  of  all  Truth  dies ;  and  yet  in 
all,  I  say,  there  is  a  soul  which  never  dies ;  which  in  new 
and  ever-nobler  embodiment  lives  immortal  as  man  himself! 
It  is  the  way  with  Nature.  The  genuine  essence  of  Truth 
never  dies.  That  it  be  genuine,  a  voice  from  the  great  Deep 
of   Nature,  there  is  the   point  at   Nature's  judgment-seat 


70  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

What  we  call  pure  or  impure,  is  not  with  her  the  final  ques- 
tion. Not  how  much  chaff  is  in  you;  but  whether  you 
have  any  wheat.  Pure  ?  I  might  say  to  many  a  man  :  Yes, 
you  are  pure;  pure  enough;  but  you  are  chaff,  —  insincere 
hypothesis,  hearsay,  formality ;  you  never  were  in  contact 
with  the  great  heart  of  the  Universe  at  all ;  you  are  properly 
neither  pure  nor  impure;  you  are  nothing,  Nature  has  no 
business  with  you. 

Mahomet's  Creed  we  called  a  kind  of  Christianity:  and 
really,  if  we  look  at  the  wild  rapt  earnestness  with  which  it 
was  believed  and  laid  to  heart,  I  should  say  a  better  kind 
than  that  of  those  miserable  Syrian  Sects,  with  their  vain 
janglings  about  Homoiousion  and  Homoousion,  the  head  full 
of  worthless  noise,  the  heart  empty  and  dead !  The  truth  of 
it  is  embedded  in  portentous  error  and  falsehood  ;  but  the 
truth  of  it  makes  it  be  believed,  not  the  falsehood :  it  suc- 
ceeded by  its  truth.  A  bastard  kind  of  Christianity,  but  a 
living  kind;  with  a  heart-life  in  it;  not  dead,  chopping  bar- 
ren logic  merely!  Out  of  all  that  rubbish  of  Arab  idolatries, 
argumentative  theologies,  traditions,  subtleties,  rumors  and 
hypotheses  of  Greeks  and  Jews,  with  their  idle  wiredrawings, 
this  wild  man  of  the  Desert,  with  his  wild  sincere  heart, 
earnest  as  death  and  life,  with  his  great  flashing  natural  eye- 
sight, had  seen  into  the  kernel  of  the  matter.^  Idolatry  is 
nothing:  these  Wooden  Idols  of  yours,  "ye  rub  them  with 
oil  and  wax,  and  the  flies  stick  on  them,"  —  these  are  wood, 
I  tell  you!  They  can  do  nothing  for  you  ;  they  are  an  im- 
potent blasphemous  pretence ;  a  horror  and  abomination,  if 
ye  knew  them.  God  alone  is;  God  alone  has  power;  He 
made  us,  He  can  kill  us  and  keep  us  alive:  "Allah  akbar^ 
God  is  great."  Understand  that  His  will  is  the  best  for  you  : 
that  howsoever  sore  to  flesh-and-blood,  you  will  find  it  the 
wisest,  best:   you  are  bound  to  take  it  so;  in  this  world 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  J I 

and  in  the   next,  you   have   no   other  thing   that  you  can 
do! 

And  now  if  the  wild  idolatrous  men  did  believe  this,  and 
with  their  fiery  hearts  lay  hold  of  it  to  do  it,  in  what  form 
soever  it  came  to  them,  I  say  it  was  well  worthy  of  being 
believed.  In  one  form  or  the  other,  I  say  it  is  still  the  one 
thing  worthy  of  being  believed  by  all  men.  Man  does  hereby 
become  the  high-priest  of  this  Temple  of  a  World.  He  is 
in  harmony  with  the  Decrees  of  the  Author  of  this  World; 
co-operating  with  them,  not  vainly  withstanding  them :  I 
know,  to  this  day,  no  better  definition  of  Duty  than  that  same. 
All  that  is  right  includes  itself  in  this  of  co-operating  with 
the  real  Tendency  of  the  World :  you  succeed  by  this  (the 
World's  Tendency  will  succeed),  you  are  good,  and  in  the 
right  course  there.  Homoiousion,  Homoousion,  vain  logical 
jangle,  then  or  before  or  at  any  time,  may  jangle  itself  out, 
and  go  whither  and  how  it  likes  :  this  is  the  thing  it  all  strug- 
gles to  mean,  if  it  would  mean  any  thing.  If  it  do  not  succeed 
in  meaning  this,  it  means  nothing.  Not  that  Abstractions, 
logical  Propositions,  be  correctly  worded  or  incorrectly ;  but 
that  living  concrete  Sons  of  Adam  do  lay  this  to  heart :  that 
is  the  important  point.  Islam  devoured  all  these  vain  jan- 
gling Sects  ;  and  I  think  had  right  to  do  so.  It  was  a  Reality, 
direct  from  the  great  Heart  of  Nature  once  more.  Arab 
idolatries,  Syrian  formulas,  whatsoever  was  not  equally  real, 
had  to  go  up  in  flame,  —  mere  dead  fuel,  in  various  senses, 
for  this  which  wasyf/r. 


especially  after  the  Flight  to  Mecca,  that  Mahomet  dictated 
at  intervals  his  Sacred  Book,  which  they  name  Koran,  or 
Reading,  "  Thing  to  be  read."  This  is  the  Work  he  and  his 
disciples  made  so  much  of,  asking  all  the  world,  Is  not  that  a 


72  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

miracle?  The  Mahometans  regard  their  Koran  with  a  rever 
ence  which  few  Christians  pay  even  to  their  Bible.  It  is  ad- 
mitted everywhere  as  the  standard  of  all  law  and  all  practice  ; 
the  thing  to  be  gone  upon  in  speculation  and  life :  the  mes- 
sage sent  direct  out  of  Heaven,  which  this  Earth  has  to  corn- 
form  to,  and  walk  by;  the  thing  to  be  read.  Their  Judges 
decide  by  it ;  all  Moslem  are  bound  to  study  it,  seek  in  it 
for  the  light  of  their  life.  They  have  mosques  where  it  is  all 
read  daily ;  thirty  relays  of  priests  take  it  up  in  succession, 
get  through  the  whole  each  day.  There,  for  twelve  hundred 
years,  has  the  voice  of  this  Book,  at  all  moments,  kept 
sounding  through  the  ears  and  the  hearts  of  so  many  men. 
We  hear  of  Mahometan  Doctors  that  had  read  it  seventy 
thousand  times ! 

Very  curious  :  if  one  sought  for  t:  discrepancies  of  national 
taste,"  here  surely  were  the  most  eminent  instance  of  that! 
We  also  can  read  the  Koran  ;  our  Translation  of  it,  by  Sale, 
is  known  to  be  a  very  fair  one.  I  must  say,  it  is  as  toilsome 
reading  as  I  ever  undertook.  A  wearisome  confused  jumble, 
crude,  incondite;  endless  iterations,  long  windedness,  en- 
tanglement ;  most  crude,  incondite  ;  —  insupportable  stupidity, 
in  short !  Nothing  but  a  sense  of  duty  could  carry  any  Euro- 
pean through  the  Koran.  We  read  in  it,  as  we  might  in  the 
State-Paper  Office,  unreadable  masses  of  lumber,  that  perhaps 
we  may  get  some  glimpses  of  a  remarkable  man.  It  is  true 
we  bave  it  under  disadvantages :  the  Arabs  see  more  method 
in  it  than  we.  Mahomet's  followers  found  the  Koran  lying  all 
in  fractions,  as  it  had  been  written  down  at  first  promulgation  ; 
much  of  it,  they  say,  on  shoulder-blades  of  mutton,  flung  pell- 
mell  into  a  chest:  and  they  published  it,  without  any  discov- 
erable order  as  to  time  or  otherwise: — merely  trying,  as 
would  seem,  and  this  not  very  strictly,  to  put  the  longest 
chapters  first.      The  real  beginning  of  it,  in  that  way,  lies 


Tim  //Mud  as  rRoriiET.  73 

almost  at  the  end :  for  the  earliest  portions  were  the  short- 
est. Read  in  its  historical  sequence  it  perhaps  would  not 
be  so  bad.  Much  of  it,  too,  they  say,  is  rhythmic;  a  kind  of 
wild  chanting  song,  in  the  original.  This  may  be  a  great 
point ;  much  perhaps  has  been  lost  in  the  Translation  here. 
Yet  with  every  allowance,  one  feels  it  difficult  to  see  how  any 
mortal  ever  could  consider  this  Koran  as  a  Book  written  in 
Heaven,  too  good  for  the  Earth ;  as  a  well-written  book,  or 
indeed  as  a  book  at  all;  and  not  a  bewildered  rhapsody; 
written,  so  far  as  writing  goes,  as  badly  as  almost  any  book 
ever  was !  So  much  for  national  discrepancies,  and  the 
standard  of  taste. 

Yet  I  should  say,  it  was  not  unintelligible  how  the  Arabs 
might  so  love  it.  When  once  you  get  this  confused  coil  of  a 
Koran  fairly  off  your  hands,  and  have  it  behind  you  at  a 
distance,  the  essential  type  of  it  begins  to  disclose  itself;  and 
in  this  there  is  a  merit  quite  other  than  the  literary  one.  If 
a  book  come  from  the  heart,  it  will  contrive  to  reach  other 
hearts ;  all  art  and  authorcraft  are  of  small  amount  to  that. 
One  would  say  the  primary  character  of  the  Koran  is  this  of 
its  genuineness,  of  its  being  a  bona-Jide  book.  Prideaux,  I 
know,  and  others  have  represented  it  as  a  mere  bundle  of 
juggleries;  chapter  after  chapter  got  up  to  excuse  and  var- 
nish the  author's  successive  sins,  forward  his  ambitions  and 
quackeries  :  but  really  it  is  time  to  dismiss  all  that.  I  do 
not  assert  Mahomet's  continual  sincerity:  who  is  continu- 
ally sincere  ?  But  I  confess  I  can  make  nothing  of  the  critic, 
in  these  times,  who  would  accuse  him  of  deceit  prepense ;  of 
conscious  deceit  generally,  or  perhaps  at  all ;  —  still  more, 
of  living  in  a  mere  element  of  conscious  deceit,  and  writing 
this  Koran  as  a  forger  and  juggler  would  have  done!  Every 
candid  eye,  I  think,  will  read  the  Koran  far  otherwise  than 
so.     It  is  the  confused  ferment  of  a  great  rude  human  soul; 


?4  LECTURES  OX  HEROES. 

rude,  untutored,  that  cannot  even  read ;  but  fervent,  earnest 
struggling  vehemently  to  utter  itself  in  words.  With  a  kind 
of  breathless  intensity  he  strives  to  utter  himself ;  the 
thoughts  crowd  on  him  pellmell :  for  very  multitude  of  things 
to  say,  he  can  get  nothing  said.  The  meaning  that  is  in 
him  shapes  itself  into  no  form  of  composition,  is  stated  in 
no  sequence,  method,  or  coherence  ;  —  they  are  not  shaped 
at  all,  these  thoughts  of  his ;  flung  out  unshaped,  as  they 
struggle  and  tumble  there,  in  their  chaotic  inarticulate 
state.  We  said  "  stupid  : "  yet  natural  stupidity  is  by  no 
means  the  character  of  Mahomet's  Book;  it  is  natural 
uncultivation  rather.  The  man  has  not  studied  speaking; 
in  the  haste  and  pressure  of  continual  fighting,  has  not 
time  to  mature  himself  into  fit  speech.  The  panting  breath- 
less haste  and  vehemence  of  a  man  struggling  in  the  thick 
of  battle  for  life  and  salvation;  this  is  the  mood  he  is 
in !  A  headlong  haste  ;  for  very  magnitude  of  meaning, 
he  cannot  get  himself  articulated  into  words.  The  suc- 
cessive utterances  of  a  soul  in  that  mood,  colored  by  the 
various  vicissitudes  of  three  and  twenty  years ;  now  well 
uttered,  now  worse  :  this  is  the  Koran. 

For  we  are  to  consider  Mahomet,  through  these  three  and 
twenty  years,  as  the  centre  of  a  world  wholly  in  conflict. 
Battles  with  the  Koreish  and  Heathen,  quarrels  among  his 
own  people,  backslidings  of  his  own  wild  heart ;  all  this  kept 
him  in  a  perpetual  whirl,  his  soul  knowing  rest  no  more.  In 
wakeful  nights,  as  one  may  fancy,  the  wild  soul  of  the  man, 
tossing  amid  these  vortices,  would  hail  any  light  of  a 
decision  for  them  as  a  veritable  light  from  Heaven;  any 
making-up  of  his  mind,  so  blessed,  indispensable  for  him 
there,  would  seem  the  inspiration  of  a  Gabriel.  Forger  and 
juggler?  No,  no!  This  great  fiery  heart,  seething,  sim- 
mering like  a  great  furnace  of  thoughts,  was  not  a  juggler's. 


The  hero  as  prophet.  ft 

His  life  was  a  Fact  to  him ;  this  God's  Universe  an  awful 
Fact  and  Reality.  He  has  faults  enough.  The  man  was  an 
uncultured  semi-barbarous  Son  of  Nature,  much  of  the 
Bedouin  still  clinging  to  him  :  we  must  take  him  for  that. 
But  for  a  wretched  Simulacrum,  a  hungry  Impostor  without 
eyes  or  heart,  practising  for  a  mess  of  pottage  such  blas- 
phemous swindlery,  forgery  of  celestial  documents,  contin- 
ual high-treason  against  his  Maker  and  Self,  we  will  not  and 
cannot  take  him. 

Sincerity,  in  all  senses,  seems  to  me  the  merit  of  the 
Koran ;  what  had  rendered  it  precious  to  the  wild  Arab  men. 
It  is,  after  all,  the  first  and  last  merit  in  a  book ;  gives  rise 
to  merits  of  all  kinds,  —  nay,  at  bottom,  it  alone  can  give  rise 
to  merit  of  any  kind.  Curiously,  through  these  incondite 
masses  of  tradition,  vituperation,  complaint,  ejaculation  in 
the  Koran,  a  vein  of  true  direct  insight,  of  what  we  might 
almost  call  poetry,  is  found  straggling.  The  body  of  the 
Book  is  made  up  of  mere  tradition,  and  as  it  were  vehement 
enthusiastic  extempore  preaching.  He  returns  forever  to 
the  old  stories  of  the  Prophets  as  they  went  current  in  the 
.Arab  memory :  how  Prophet  after  Prophet,  the  Prophet 
Abraham,  the  Prophet  Hud,  the  Prophet  Moses,  Christian 
and  other  real  and  fabulous  Prophets,  had  come  to  this 
Tribe  and  to  that,  warning  men  of  their  sin ;  and  been 
received  by  them  even  as  he  Mahomet  was, — which  is  a 
great  solace  to  him.  These  things  he  repeats  ten,  perhaps 
twenty  times ;  again  and  ever  again,  with  wearisome  itera- 
tion ;  has  never  done  repeating  them.  A  brave  Samuel 
Johnson,  in  his  forlorn  garret,  might  con  over  the  Biographies 
of  Authors  in  that  way!  This  is  the  great  staple  of  the 
Koran.  But  curiously,  through  all  this,  comes  ever  and 
anon  some  glance  as  of  the  real  thinker  and  seer.  He  has 
actually  an  eye  for  the  world,  this  Mahomet :  with  a  certain 


j6  LECTURES  O.V  HEROES, 

directness  and  rugged  vigor,  he  brings  home  still,  to  our 
heart,  the  thing  his  own  heart  has  been  opened  to.  I  make 
but  little  of  his  praises  of  Allah,  which  many  praise;  they 
are  borrowed  I  suppose  mainly  from  the  Hebrew,  at  least 
they  are  far  surpassed  there.  But  the  eye  that  flashes  direct 
into  the  heart  of  things,  and  sees  the  truth  of  them ;  this  is 
to  me  a  highly  interesting  object.  Great  Nature's  own  gift; 
which  she  bestows  on  all;  but  which  only  one  in  the  thou- 
sand does  not  cast  sorrowfully  away:  it  is  what  I  call 
sincerity  of  vision;  the  test  of  a  sincere  heart. 

Mahomet  can  work  no  miracles :  he  often  answers  impa- 
tiently: I  can  work  no  miracles.  I?  "I  am  a  Public 
Preacher;"  appointed  to  preach  this  doctrine  to  all  creatures. 
Yet  the  world,  as  we  can  see,  had  really  from  of  old  been  all 
one  great  miracle  to  him.  Look  over  the  world,  says  he;  is 
it  not  wonderful,  the  work  of  Allah ;  wholly  "  a  sign  to  you,*' 
if  your  eyes  were  open  !  This  Earth,  God  made  it  for  you ; 
"appointed  paths  in  it; "  you  can  live  in  it,  go  to  and  fro  on 
it. — The  clouds  in  the  dry  country  of  Arabia,  to  Mahomet 
they  are  very  wonderful :  Great  clouds,  he  says,  born  in  the 
deep  bosom  of  the  Upper  Immensity,  where  do  they  come 
from!  They  hang  there,  the  great  black  monsters;  pour 
down  their  rain-deluges  "  to  revive  a  dead  earth,"  and  grass 
springs,  and  "tall  leafy  palm-trees  with  their  date-clusters 
hanging  round.  Is  not  that  a  sign?"  Your  cattle  too;  — 
Allah  made  them ;  serviceable  dumb  creatures  ;  they  change 
the  grass  into  milk ;  you  have  your  clothing  from  them,  very 
strange  creatures  ;  they  come  ranking  home  at  evening  time, 
"  and,"  adds  he,  "  and  are  a  credit  to  you  !  "  Ships  also,  — 
he  talks  often  aLout  ships :  Huge  moving  mountains,  they 
spread  out  their  cloth  wings,  go  bounding  through  the  water 
there,  Heaven's  wind  driving  them;  anon  they  lie  motion- 
less, God  has  withdrawn  the  wind,  they  lie  dead,  and  cannot 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  J  J 

stir!  Miracles?  cries  he:  What  miracle  would  you  have? 
Are  not  you  yourselves  there  ?  God  made  you,  "  shaped  you 
out  of  a  little  clay."  Ye  were  small  once ;  a  few  years  ago 
ye  were  not  at  all.  Ye  have  beauty,  strength,  thoughts,  "  ye 
have  compassion  on  one  another."  Old  age  comes  on  you, 
and  gray  hairs  ;  your  strength  fades  into  feebleness ;  ye  sink 
down,  and  again  are  not.  **  Ye  have  compassion  on  one 
another :  "  this  struck  me  much  :  Allah  might  have  made  you 
having  no  compassion  on  one  another, — how  had  it  been 
then  !  This  is  a  great  direct  thought,  a  glance  at  first-hand 
into  the  very  fact  of  things.  Rude  vestiges  of  poetic  genius, 
of  whatsoever  is  best  and  truest,  are  visible  in  this  man.  A 
strong  untutored  intellect ;  eyesight,  heart :  a  strong  wild 
man,  —  might  have  shaped  himself  into  Poet,  King,  Priest, 
any  kind  of  Hero. 

To  his  eyes  it  is  forever  clear  that  this  world  wholly  is 
miraculous.  He  sees  what,  as  we  said  once  before,  all  great 
thinkers,  the  rude  Scandinavians  themselves,  in  one  way  or 
other,  have  contrived  to  see  :  That  this  so  solid-looking 
material  world  is,  at  bottom,  in  very  deed,  Nothing;  is  a 
visual  and  tactual  Manifestation  of  God's  power  and  presence, 
—  a  shadow  hung  out  by  Him  on  the  bosom  of  the  void  Infi- 
nite ;  nothing  more.  The  mountains,  he  says,  these  great  rock- 
mountains,  they  shall  dissipate  themselves  "  like  clouds  ;  " 
melt  into  the  Blue  as  clouds  do,  and  not  be !  He  figures  the 
Earth,  in  the  Arab  fashion,  Sale  tells  us,  as  an  immense 
Plain  or  flat  Plate  of  ground,  the  mountains  are  set  on  that 
to  steady  it.  At  the  Last  Day  they  shall  disappear  "  like 
clouds  ;  "  the  whole  Earth  shall  go  spinning,  whirl  itself  off 
into  wreck,  and  as  dust  and  vapor  vanish  in  the  Inane.  Allah 
withdraws  his  hand  from  it,  and  it  ceases  to  be.  The  univer- 
sal empire  of  Allah,  presence  everywhere  of  an  unspeakable 
Power,  a  Splendor,  and  a  Terror  not  to  be  named,  as  the 


7<8  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

true  force,  essence  and  reality,  in  all  things  whatsoever,  was 
continually  clear  to  this  man.  What  a  modern  talks  of  by 
the  name,  Forces  of  Nature,  Laws  of  Nature ;  and  does  not 
figure  as  a  divine  thing ;  not  even  as  one  thing  at  all,  but  as 
a  set  of  things,  undivine  enough,  —  salable,  curious,  good 
for  propelling  steamships  !  With  our  Sciences  and  Cyclopae- 
dias, we  are  apt  to  forget  the  divinencss,  in  those  laboratories 
of  ours.  WTe  ought  not  to  forget  it !  That  once  well  forgot- 
ten, I  know  not  what  else  were  worth  remembering.  Most 
sciences,  I  think,  were  then  a  very  dead  thing ;  withered, 
contentious,  empty;  —  a  thistle  in  late  autumn.  The  best 
science,  without  this,  is  but  as  the  dead  timber ;  it  is  not  the 
growing  tree  and  forest, — which  gives  ever-new  timber, 
among  other  things !  Man  cannot  know  either,  unless  he 
worship  in  some  way.  His  knowledge  is  a  pedantry,  and 
dead  thistle,  otherwise. 

Much  has  been  said  and  written  about  the  sensuality  of 
Mahomet's  Religion;  more  than  was  just.  The  indulgences, 
criminal  to  us,  which  he  permitted,  were  not  of  his  appoint- 
ment ;  he  found  them  practised,  unquestioned,  from  immemo- 
rial time  in  Arabia ;  what  he  did  was  to  curtail  them,  restrict 
them,  not  on  one  but  on  many  sides.  His  Religion  is  not  an 
easy  one  :  with  rigorous  fasts,  lavations,  strict  complex  for- 
mulas, prayers  five  times  a  day,  and  abstinence  from  wine,  it 
did  not  "  succeed  by  being  an  easy  religion/'  As  if  indeed 
any  religion,  or  cause  holding  of  religion,  could  succeed  by 
that!  It  is  a  calumny  on  men  to  say  that  they  are  roused  to 
heroic  action  by  ease,  hope  of  pleasure,  recompense,  —  sugar- 
plums of  any  kind,  in  this  world  or  the  next !  In  the  meanest 
mortal  there  lies  something  nobler.  The  poor  swearing  sol- 
dier, hired  to  be  shot,  has  his  "  honor  of  a  soldier,"  different 
from  drill-regulations  and  the  shilling  a  day.  It  is  not  to 
taste  sweet  things,  but  to  dp  noble  and  true  things,  and  vincli- 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  79 

cate  himself  under  -God's  Heaven  as  a  God-made  Man,  that 
the  poorest  son  of  Adam  dimly  longs.  Show  him  the  way  of 
doing  that,  the  dullest  daydrudge  kindles  into  a  hero.  They 
wrong  man  greatly  who  say  he  is  to  be  seduced  by  ease. 
Difficulty,  abnegation,  martyrdom,  death,  are  the  allurements 
that  act  on  the  heart  of  man.  Kindle  the  inner  genial  life 
of  him,  you  have  a  flame  that  burns  up  all  lower  considera- 
tions. Not  happiness,  but  something  higher :  one  sees  this 
even  in  the  frivolous  classes,  with  their  "point  of  honor" 
and  the  like.  Not  by  flattering  our  appetites ;  no,  by  awaken- 
ing the  Heroic  that  slumbers  in  every  heart,  can  any  Religion 
gain  followers. 

Mahomet  himself,  after  all  that  can  be  said  about  him,  was 
not  a  sensual  man.  We  shall  err  widely  if  we  consider  this 
man  as  a  common  voluptuary,  intent  mainly  on  base  enjoy- 
ments, —  nay  on  enjoyments  of  any  kind.  His  household  was 
of  the  frugalest ;  his  common  diet  barley-bread  and  water : 
sometimes  for  months  there  was  not  a  fire  once  lighted  on 
his  hearth.  They  record  with  just  pride  that  he  would  mend 
his  own  shoes,  patch  his  own  cloak.  A  poor,  hard-toiling, 
ill-provided  man ;  careless  of  what  vulgar  men  toil  for.  Not 
a  bad  man,  I  should  say ;  something  better  in  him  than  hun- 
ger of  any  sort, — or  these  wild  Arab  men.  fighting  and  jos- 
tling three  and  twenty  years  at  his  hand,  in  close  contact  with 
him  always,  would  not  have  reverenced  him  so!  They  were 
wild  men,  bursting  ever  and  anon  into  quarrel,  into  all  kinds 
of  fierce  sincerity ;  without  right  worth  and  manhood,  no  man 
could  have  commanded  them.  They  called  him  Prophet, 
you  say  ?  Why,  he  stood  there  face  to  face  with  them  ;  bare, 
not  enshrined  in  any  mystery  ;  visibly  clouting  his  own  cloak, 
cobbling  his  own  shoes  ;  fighting,  counselling,  ordering  in 
the  midst  of  them  :  they  must  have  seen  what  kind  of  a  man 
he  was,  let  him  be  called  what  you  like  !    No  emperor  will] 


80  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

his  tiaras  was  obeyed  as  this  man  in  a  cloak  of  his  own 
clouting,  during  three  and  twenty  years  of  rough  actual 
trial.  I  find  something  of  a  veritable  Hero  necessary  for 
that,  of  itself. 

His  last  words  are  a  prayer;  broken  ejaculations  of  a  heart 
struggling  up,  in  trembling  hope,  towards  its  Maker.  We 
cannot  say  that  his  religion  made  him  worse ;  it  made  him 
better;  good,  not  bad.  Generous  things  are  recorded  of 
him:  when  he  lost  his  Daughter,  the  thing  he  answers  is,  in 
his  own  dialect,  every  way  sincere,  and  yet  equivalent  to 
that  of  Christians,  "  The  Lord  giveth,  and  the  Lord  taketh 
away;  blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord."  He  answered  in 
like  manner  of  Seid,  his  emancipated  well-beloved  Slave,  the 
second  of  the  believers.  Seid  had  fallen  in  the  War  of 
Tabuc,  the  first  of  Mahomet's  fightings  with  the  Greeks. 
Mahomet  said,  It  was  well;  Seid  had  done  his  Master's 
work,  Seid  had  now  gone  to  his  Master :  it  was  all  well  with 
Seid.  Yet  Seid's  daughter  found  him  weeping  over  the 
body; — the  old  gray-haired  man  melting  in  tears!  "What 
do  I  see  ?  "  said  she.  —  "  You  see  a  friend  weeping  over  his 
friend."  —  He  went  out  for  the  last  time  into  the  mosque, 
two  days  before  his  death  ;  asked,  If  he  had  injured  any  man  ? 
Let  his  own  back  bear  the  stripes.  If  he  owed  any  man? 
A  voice  answered,  "Yes,  me  three  drachms,'"  borrowed  on 
such  an  occasion.  Mahomet  ordered  them  to  be  paid  : 
"  Better  be  in  shame  now,"  said  he,  "  than  at  the  Day  of 
Judgment."  —  You  remember  Kadijah,  and  the  "  No,  by 
Allah  !  "  Traits  of  that  kind  show  us  the  genuine  man,  the 
brother  of  us  all,  brought  visible  through  twelve  centuries, 
—  the  veritable  Son  of  our  common  Mother. 

Withal  I  like  Mahomet  for  his  total  freedom  from  cant, 
fie  is  a  rough  self-helping  son  of  the  wilderness  ;  does  not 
pretend  to  be  what  he  is  not.     There   is  no  ostentatious 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  8 1 

pride  in  him  ;  but  neither  does  he  go  much  upon  humility : 
he  is  there  as  he  can  be,  in  cloak  and  shoes  of  his  own 
clouting ;  speaks  plainly  to  all  manner  of  Persian  Kingss 
Greek  Emperors,  what  it  is  they  are  bound  to  do  ;  knows 
well  enough,  about  himself,  "the  respect  due  unto  thee." 
In  a  life-and-death  war  with  Bedouins,  cruel  things  could  not 
fail ;  but  neither  are  acts  of  mercy,  of  noble  natural  pity  and 
generosity,  wanting.  Mahomet  makes  no  apology  for  the 
one,  no  boast  of  the  other.  They  were  each  the  free  dictate 
of  his  heart;  each  called  for,  there  and  then.  Not  a  mealy- 
mouthed  man  !  A  candid  ferocity,  if  the  case  call  for  it,  is  in 
him;  he  does  not  mince  matters  !  The  War  of  Tabuc  is  a 
thing  he  often  speaks  of :  his  men  refused,  many  of  them,  to 
march  on  that  occasion  ;  pleaded  the  heat  of  the  weather, 
the  harvest,  and  so  forth  ;  he  can  never  forget  that.  Your 
harvest  ?  It  lasts  for  a  day.  What  will  become  of  your 
harvest  through  all  Eternity?  Hot  weather?  Yes,  it  was 
hot;  "but  Hell  will  be  hotter!"  Sometimes  a  rough  sar- 
casm turns  up :  He  says  to  the  unbelievers,  Ye  shall  have 
the  just  measure  of  your  deeds  at  that  Great  Day.  They  will 
be  weighed  out  to  you  ;  ye  shall  not  have  short  weight !  — 
Everywhere  he  fixes  the  matter  in  his  eye  ;  he  sees  it :  his 
heart,  now  and  then,  is  as  if  struck  dumb  by  the  greatness  of 
it.  "  Assuredly,"  he  says  :  that  word,  in  the  Koran,  is  written 
down  sometimes  as  a  sentence  by  itself :  "  Assuredly." 

No  Dilettantism  in  this  Mahomet;  it  is  a  business  of 
Reprobation  and  Salvation  with  him,  of  Time  and  Eternity  : 
he  is  in  deadly  earnest  about  it !  Dilettantism,  hypothesis, 
speculation,  a  kind  of  amateur  seach  for  Truth,  toying  and 
coquetting  with  Truth  :  this  is  the  sorest  sin.  The  root  of 
all  other  imaginable  sins.  It  consists  in  the  heart  and  soul 
of  the  man  never  having  been  open  to  Truth  ;  —  "living  in 
a  vain  show."     Such  a  man  not  only  utters  and  produces 


82  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

falsehoods,  but  is  himself  a  falsehood.  The  rational  mora\ 
principle,  spark  of  the  Divinity,  is  sunk  deep  in  him,  in  quiet 
paralysis  of  life-death.  The  very  falsehoods  of  Mahomet 
are  truer  than  the  truths  of  such  a  man.  He  is  the  insin- 
cere man :  smooth-polished,  respectable  in  some  times  and 
places;  inoffensive,  says  nothing  harsh  to  anybody;  most 
cleanly, — just  as  carbonic  acid  is,  which  is  death  and 
poison. 

We  will  not  praise  Mahomet's  moral  precepts  as  always  of 
the  superfinest  sort ;  yet  it  can  be  said  that  there  is  always 
a  tendency  to  good  in  them ;  that  they  are  the  true  dictates 
of  a  heart  aiming  towards  what  is  just  and  true.  The  sublime 
forgiveness  of  Christianity,  turning  of  the  other  cheek  when 
the  one  has  been  smitten,  is  not  here :  you  are  to  revenge 
yourself,  but  it  is  to  be  in  measure,  not  overmuch,  or  beyond 
justice.  On  the  other  hand,  Islam,  like  any  great  Faith,  and 
insight  into  the  essence  of  man,  is  a  perfect  equalizer  of 
men :  the  soul  of  one  believer  outweighs  all  earthly  king- 
ships ;  all  men,  according  to  Islam  too,  are  equal.  Maho- 
met insists  not  on  the  propriety  of  giving  alms,  but  on  the 
necessity  of  it :  he  marks  down  by  law  how  much  you  are  to 
give,  and  it  is  at  .your  peril  if  you  neglect.  The  tenth  part 
of  a  man's  annual  income,  whatever  that  may  be,  is  the 
property  of  the  poor,  of  those  that  are  afflicted  and  need 
help.  Good  all  this  :  the  natural  voice  of  humanity,  of  pity 
and  equity  dwelling  in  the  heart  of  this  wild  Son  of  Nature 
speaks  so. 

Mahomet's  Paradise  is  sensual,  his  Hell  sensual :  true ; 
in  the  one  and  the  other  there  is  enough  that  shocks  all 
spiritual  feeling  in  us.  But  we  are  to  recollect  that  the 
Arabs  already  had  it  so ;  that  Mahomet,  in  whatever  he 
changed  of  it,  softened  and  diminished  all  this.  The  worst 
sensualities,  too,  are  the  work  of  doctors,  followers  of  his, 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  83 

not  his  work.  In  the  Koran  there  is  really  very  little  said 
about  the  joys  of  Paradise ;  they  are  intimated  rather  than 
insisted  on.  Nor  is  it  forgotten  that  the  highest  joys  even 
there  shall  be  spiritual :  the  pure  Presence  of  the  Highest, 
this  shall  infinitely  transcend  all  other  joys.  He  says, 
';  Your  salutation  shall  be,  Peace."  Sa/am,  Have  Peace  !  — 
the  thing  that  all  rational  souls  long  for,  and  seek,  vainly 
here  below,  as  the  one  blessing.  "  Ye  shall  sit  on  seats, 
facing  one  another :  all  grudges  shall  be  taken  away  out  of 
your  hearts."  All  grudges!  Ye  shall  love  one  another 
freely ;  for  each  of  you,  in  the  eyes  of  his  brothers,  there 
will  be  Heaven  enough  ! 

In  reference  to  this  of  the  sensual  Paradise  and  Mahomet's 
sensuality,  the  sorest  chapter  of  all  for  us,  there  were  many 
things  to  be  said ;  which  it  is  not  convenient  to  enter  upon 
here.  Two  remarks  only  I  shall  make,  and  therewith  leave 
it  to  your  candor.  The  first  is  furnished  me  by  Goethe;  it  is 
a  casual  hint  of  his  which  seems  well  worth  taking  note  of. 
In  one  of  his  Delineations,  in  Meister*s  Travels  it  is,  the 
hero  comes  upon  a  Society  of  men  with  very  strange  ways, 
one  of  which  was  this  :  "  We  require,"  says  the  Master, 
"that  each  of  our  people  shall  restrict  himself  in  one  direc- 
tion," shall  go  right  against  his  desire  in  one  matter,  and 
make  himself  do  the  thing  he  does  not  wish,  "should  we 
allow  him  the  greater  latitude  on  all  other  sides."  There 
seems  to  me  a  great  justness  in  this.  Enjoying  things  which 
are  pleasant ;  that  is  not  the  evil :  it  is  the  reducing  of  our 
moral  self  to  slavery  by  them  that  is.  Let  a  man  assert 
withal  that  he  is  king  over  his  habitudes ;  that  he  could  and 
would  shake  them  off,  on  cause  shown  :  this  is  an  excellent 
law.  The  Month  Ramadhan  for  the  Moslem,  much  in 
Mahomet's  Religion,  much  in  his  own  Life,  bears  in  that 
direction ;  if  not  by  forethought,  or  clear  purpose  of  moral 


84  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

improvement  on  his  part,  then  by  a  certain  healthy  manfu! 
instinct,  which  is  as  good. 

But  there  is  another  thing  to  be  said  about  the  Mahometan 
Heaven  and  Hell.  This  namely,  that,  however  gross  and 
material  they  may  be,  they  are  an  emblem  of  an  everlasting 
truth,  not  always  so  well  remembered  elsewhere.  That 
gross  sensual  Paradise  of  his ;  that  horrible  flaming  Hell ; 
the  great  enormous  Day  of  Judgment  he  perpetually  insists 
on :  what  is  all  this  but  a  rude  shadow,  in  the  rude  Bedouin 
imagination,  of  that  grand  spiritual  Fact,  and  Beginning  of 
Facts,  which  it  is  ill  for  us  too  if  we  do  not  all  know  and 
feel:  the  Infinite  Nature  of  Duty?  That  man's  actions  here 
are  of  infinite  moment  to  him,  and  never  die  or  end  at  all ; 
that  man,  with  his  little  life,  reaches  upwards  high  as 
Heaven,  downwards  low  as  Hell,  and  in  his  threescore  years 
of  Time  holds  an  Eternity  fearfully  and  wonderfully  hidden  : 
all  this  had  burnt  itself,  as  in  flame-characters,  into  the  wild 
Arab  soul.  As  in  flame  and  lightning,  it  stands  written 
there  ;  awful,  unspeakable,  ever  present  to  him.  With  burst- 
ing earnestness,  with  a  fierce  savage  sincerity,  half-articulat- 
ing, not  able  to  articulate,  he  strives  to  speak  it,  bodies  it 
forth  in  that  Heaven  and  that  Hell.  Bodied  forth  in  what 
way  you  will,  it  is  the  first  of  all  truths.  It  is  venerable 
under  all  embodiments.  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  here 
below?  Mahomet  has  answered  this  question,  in  a  way  that 
might  put  some  of  us  to  shame !  He  does  not,  like  a 
Bentham,  a  Paley,  take  Right  and  Wrong,  and  calculate  the 
profit  and  loss,  ultimate  pleasure-  of  the  one  and  of  the 
other;  and  summing  all  up  by  addition  and  subtraction 
into  a  net  result,  ask  you,  Whether  on  the  whole  the  Right 
does  not  preponderate  considerably  ?  No ;  is  it  not  better 
to  do  the  one  than  the  other  ;  the  one  is  to  the  other  as  life 
is  to  death,  —  as    Heaven   is   to    Hell.     The   one   must   in 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  85 

nowise  be  done,  the  other  in  nowise  left  undone.  You  shall 
not  measure  them  ;  they  are  incommensurable :  the  one  is 
death  eternal  to  a  man,  the  other  is  life  eternal.  Benthamee 
Utility,  virtue  by  Profit  and  Loss;  reducing  this  God\s- 
world  to  a  dead  brute  Steam-engine,  the  infinite  celestial 
Soul  of  Man  to  a  kind  of  Hay-balance  for  weighing  hay 
and  thistles  on,  pleasures  and  pains  on :  —  If  you  ask  me 
which  gives,  Mahomet  or  they,  the  beggarlier  and  falser  view 
of  Man  and  his  Destinies  in  this  Universe,  I  will  answer,  It 

is  not  Mahomet ! 

On  the  whole,  we  will  repeat  that  this  Religion  of  Maho- 
met's is  a  kind  of  Christianity ;  has  a  genuine  element  of 
what  is  spiritually  highest  looking  through  it,  not  to  be 
hidden  by  all  its  imperfections.  The  Scandinavian  God 
Wish,  the  god  of  all  rude  men,  —  this  has  been  enlarged 
into  a  Heaven  by  Mahomet;  but  a  Heaven  symbolical  of 
sacred  Duty,  and  to  be  earned  by  faith  and  well-doing,  by 
valiant  action,  and  a  divine  patience  which  is  still  more 
valiant.  It  is  Scandinavian  Paganism,  and  a  truly  celestial 
element  superadded  to  that.  Call  it  not  false ;  look  not  at 
the  falsehood  of  it,  look  at  the  truth  of  it.  For  these  twelve 
centuries,  it  has  been  the  religion  and  life-guidance  of  the 
fifth  part  of  the  whole  kindred  of  Mankind.  Above  all 
things,  it  has  been  a  religion  heartily  believed.  These  Arabs 
believe  their  religion,  and  try  to  live  by  it !  No  Christians, 
since  the  early  ages,  or  only  perhaps  the  English  Puritans 
in  modern  times,  have  ever  stood  by  their  Faith  as  the 
Moslem  do  by  theirs,  —  believing  it  wholly,  fronting  Time 
with  it,  and  Eternity  with  it.  This  night  the  watchman  on 
the  streets  of  Cairo  when  he  cries,  "  Who  goes  ?  "  will  hear 
from  the  passenger,  along  with  his  answer,  "  There  is  no 
God  but  God."  Allah  akbar,  Islam,  sounds  through  the 
souls,  and  whole  daily  existence,  of  these  dusky  millions. 


86  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Zealous  missionaries  preach  it  abroad  among  Malays,  black 
Papuans,  brutal  Idolaters ;  —  displacing  what  is  worse,  noth- 
ing that  is  better  or  good. 

To  the  Arab  Nation  it  was  as  a  birth  from  darkness  into 
light:  Arabia  first  became  alive  by  means  of  it.  A  poor 
shepherd  people,  roaming  unnoticed  in  its  deserts  since  the 
creation  of  the  world :  a  Hero-Prophet  was  sent  down  to 
them  with  a  word  they  could  believe:  see,  the  unnoticed 
becomes  world-notable,  the  small  has  grown  world-great; 
within  one  century  afterwards,  Arabia  is  at  Grenada  on  this 
hand,  at  Delhi  on  that ;  —  glancing  in  valor  and  splendor 
and  the  light  of  genius,  Arabia  shines  through  long  ages 
over  a  great  section  of  the  world.  Belief  is  great,  life-giving. 
The  history  of  a  Nation  becomes  fruitful,  soul-elevating, 
great,  so  soon  as  it  believes.  These  Arabs,  the  man  Maho- 
met, and  that  one  century,  —  is  it  not  as  if  a  spark  had 
fallen,  one  spark,  on  a  world  of  what  seemed  black  unnutice- 
able  sand;  but  lo,  the  sand  proves  explosive  powder,  t.azes 
heaven-high  from  Delhi  to  Grenada!  I  said,  the  Great  Man 
was  always  as  lightning  out  of  Heaven ;  the  rest  ol  men 
waited  for  him  like  fuel,  and  then  they  too  would  flame 


THE  HERO  AS  POET.  87 


LECTURE  ITT. 

THE  HERO  AS  POET.    DANTE;   SHAKSPEARE. 
[Tuesday,  12th  May,  1840.] 

THE  Hero  as  Divinity,  the  Hero  as  Prophet,  are  produc- 
tions of  old  ages;  not  to  be  repeated  in  the  new.  They 
presuppose  a  certain  rudeness  of  conception,  which  the  prog- 
ress of  mere  scientific  knowledge  puts  an  end  to.  There 
needs  to  be,  as  it  were,  a  world  vacant,  or  almost  vacant,  of 
scientific  forms,  if  men  in  their  loving  wonder  are  to  fancy 
their  fellow-man  either  a  god  or  one  speaking  with  the  voice 
of  a  god.  Divinity  and  Prophet  are  past.  We  are  now  to 
see  our  Hero  in  the  less  ambitious,  but  also  less  questiona- 
ble, character  of  Poet ;  a  character  which  does  not  pass. 
The  Poet  is  a  heroic  figure  belonging  to  all  ages ;  whom  all 
ages  possess,  when  once  he  is  produced,  whom  the  newest 
age  as  the  oldest  may  produce  ;  —  and  will  produce,  always 
when  Nature  pleases.  Let  Nature  send  a  Hero-soul ;  in  no 
age  is  it  other  than  possible  that  he  may  be  shaped  into  a 
Poet. 

Hero,  Prophet,  Poet,  —  many  different  names,  in  different 
times  and  places,  do  we  give  to  Great  Men;  according  to 
varieties  we  note  in  them,  according  to  the  sphere  in  which 
they  have  displayed  themselves  !  We  might  give  many  more 
names,  on  this  same  principle.  I  will  remark  again,  however, 
as  a  fact  not  unimportant  to  be  understood,  that  the  different 


88  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

sphere  constitutes  the  grand  origin  of  such  distinction ;  that 
the  Hero  can  be  Poet,  Prophet,  King,  Priest,  or  what  you 
will,  according  to  the  kind  of  world  he  finds  himself  born 
into.  I  confess,  I  have  no  notion  of  a  truly  great  man  that 
could  not  be  all  sorts  of  men.  The  Poet  who  could  merely 
sit  on  a  chair,  and  compose  stanzas,  would  never  make  a 
stanza  worth  much.  He  could  not  sing  the  Heroic  warrior, 
unless  he  himself  were  at  least  a  Heroic  warrior  too.  I  fancy 
there  is  in  him  the  Politician,  the  Thinker,  Legislator,  Phi- 
losopher ;  —  in  one  or  the  other  degree,  he  could  have  been, 
he  is,  all  these.  So  too  I  cannot  understand  how  a  Mirabeau, 
with  that  great  glowing  heart,  with  the  fire  that  was  in  it, 
with  the  bursting  tears  that  were  in  it,  could  not  have  written 
verses,  tragedies,  poems,  and  touched  all  hearts  in  that  way, 
had  his  course  of  life  and  education  led  him  thitherward. 
The  grand  fundamental  character  is  that  of  Great  Man ; 
that  the  man  be  great.  Napoleon  has  words  in  him  which 
are  like  Austerlitz  Battles.  Louis  Fourteenth's  Marshals  are 
a  kind  of  poetical  men  withal ;  the  things  Turenne  says 
are  full  of  sagacity  and  geniality,  like  sayings  of  Samuel 
Johnson.  The  great  heart,  the  clear  deep-seeing  eye  :  there 
it  lies;  no  man  whatever,  in  what  province  soever,  can 
prosper  at  all  without  these.  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio  did 
diplomatic  messages,  it  seems,  quite  well :  one  can  easily 
believe  it;  they  had  done  things  a  little  harder  than  these! 
Burns,  a  gifted  song-writer,  might  have  made  a  still  better 
Mirabeau.  Shakspeare,  —  one  knows  not  what  he  could  not 
have  made,  in  the  supreme  degree. 

True,  there  are  aptitudes  of  Nature  too.  Nature  does  not 
make  all  great  men,  more  than  all  other  men,  in  the  selfsame 
mould.  Varieties  of  aptitude  doubtless  ;  but  infinitely  more 
of  circumstance;  and  far  oftenest  it  is  the  latter  only  that 
are  looked  to.     But  it  is  as  with  common  men  in  the  learning 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE   HERO   AS  POET.  89 

of  trades.  You  take  any  man,  as  yet  a  vague  capability  of 
a  man,  who  could  be  any  kind  of  craftsman ;  and  make 
him  into  a  smith,  a  carpenter,  a  mason:  he  is  then  and 
thenceforth  that  and  nothing  else.  And  if,  as  Addison  com- 
plains, you  sometimes  see  a  street-porter  staggering  under 
his  load  on  spindle-shanks,  and  near  at  hand  a  tailor  with 
the  frame  of  a  Samson  handling  a  bit  of  cloth  and  small 
Whitechapel  needle,  —  it  cannot  be  considered  that  aptitude 
of  Nature  alone  has  been  consulted  here  either!  —  The 
Great  Man  also,  to  what  shall  he  be  bound  apprentice  ? 
Given  your  Hero,  is  he  to  become  Conquerer,  King,  Philoso- 
pher, Poet?  It  is  an  inexplicably  complex  controversial- 
calculation  between  the  world  and  him !  He  will  read  the 
world  and  its  laws ;  the  world  with  its  laws  will  be  there  to 
be  read.  What  the  world,  on  this  matter,  shall  permit 
and  bid  is,  as  we  said,  the  most  important  fact  about  the 
world. 

Poet  and  Prophet  differ  greatly  in  our  loose  modern 
notions  of  them.  In  some  old  languages,  again,  the  titles 
are  synonymous  ;  Vates  means  both  Prophet  and  Poet :  and 
indeed  at  all  times,  Prophet  and  Poet,  well  understood,  have 
much  kindred  of  meaning.  Fundamentally  indeed  they  are 
still  the  same;  in  this  most  important  respect  especially, 
That  they  have  penetrated  both  of  them  into  the  sacred 
mystery  of  the  Universe;  what  Goethe  calls  "the  open 
secret."  "  Which  is  the  great  secret  ?  "  asks  one.  —  "  The 
open  secret,"  —  open  to  all,  seen  by  almost  none !  That 
divine  mystery,  which  lies  everywhere  in  all  Beings,  "the 
Divine  Idea  of  the  World,  that  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
Appearance,"  as  Fichte  styles  it ;  of  which  all  Appearance, 
from  the  starry  sky  to  the  grass  of  the  field,  but  especially 
the   Appearance  of  Man  and  his  work,  is  but  the  vesture, 


90  LECTURES  0Ar  HEROES. 

the  embodiment  that  renders  it  visible.  This  divine  mystery 
is  in  all  times  and  in  all  places  ;  veritably  is.  In  most  times 
and  places  it  is  greatly  overlooked  ;  and  the  Universe,  defin- 
able always  in  one  or  the  other  dialect,  as  the  realized 
Thought  of  God,  is  considered  a  trivial,  inert,  commonplace 
matter,  —  as  if,  says  the  Satirist,  it  were  a  dead  thing,  which 
some  upholsterer  had  put  together !  It  could  do  no  good,  at 
present,  to  speak  much  about  this  ;  but  it  is  a  pity  for  every 
one  of  us  if  we  do  not  know  it,  live  ever  in  the  knowledge  of 
it.  Really  a  most  mournful  pity ;  —  a  failure  to  live  at  all, 
if  we  live  otherwise  ! 

"  But  now,  I  say,  whoever  may  forget  this  divine  mystery, 
the  Vates,  whether  Prophet  or  Poet,  has  penetrated  into  it ; 
is  a  man  sent  hither  to  make  it  more  impressively  known  to 
us.  That  always  is  his  message ;  he  is  to  reveal  that  to  us, 
—  that  sacred  mystery  which  he  more  than  others  lives  ever 
present  with.  While  others  forget  it,  he  knows  it ; —  I  might 
say,  he  has  been  driven  to  know  it ;  without  consent  asked 
of  him,  he  finds  himself  living  in  it,  bound  to  live  in  it. 
Once  more,  here  is  no  Hearsay,  but  a  direct  Insight  and 
Belief;  this  man  too  could  not  help  being  a  sincere  man! 
Whosoever  may  live  in  the  shows  of  things,  it  is  for  him  a 
necessity  of  nature  to  live  in  the  very  fact  of  things.  A 
man  once  more,  in  earnest  with  the  Universe,  though  all 
others  were  but  toying  with  it.  He  is  a  Vates,  first  of  all,  in 
virtue  of  being  sincere.  So  far  Poet  and  Prophet,  partici- 
pators in  the  "  open  secret,"  are  one. 

With  respect  to  their  distinction  again  :  the  Vates  Prophet, 
we  might  say,  has  seized  that  sacred  mystery  rather  on 
the  moral  side,  as  Good  and  Evil,  Duty  and  Prohibition;  the 
Vates  Poet  on  what  the  Germans  call  the  aesthetic  side,  as 
Beautiful,  and  the  like.  The  one  we  may  call  a  revealer  of 
what  we  are  to  do,  the  other  of  what  we  are  to  love.     But 


THE  HEkO  AS  POET.  91 

indeed  these  two  provinces  run  into  one  another,  and  cannot 
be  disjoined.  The  Prophet  too  has  his  eye  on  what  we  are 
to  love :  how  else  shall  he  know  what  it  is  we  are  to  do  ? 
The  highest  Voice  ever  heard  on  this  earth  said  withal, 
"  Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field ;  they  toil  not,  neither  do 
they  spin :  yet  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed 
like  one  of  these."  A  glance,  that,  into  the  deepest  deep 
of  Beauty.  "The  lilies  of  the  field,"  —  dressed  finer  than 
earthly  princes,  springing  up  there  in  the  humble  furrow  field ; 
a  beautiful  eye  looking  out  on  you,  from  the  great  inner  Sea 
of  Beauty !  How  could  the  rude  Earth  make  these,  if  her 
Essence,  rugged  as  she  looks  and  is,  were  not  inwardly 
Beauty  ?  In  this  point  of  view,  too,  a  saying  of  Goethe's, 
which  has  staggered  several,  may  have  meaning :  "  The 
Beautiful,"  he  intimates,  "is  higher  than  the  Good;  the 
Beautiful  includes  in  it  "  the  Good."  The  true  Beautiful ; 
which  however,  I  have  said  somewhere,  "differs  from  the 
false  as  Heaven  does  from  Vauxhall ! "  So  much  for 
the  distinction  and  identity  of  Poet  and  Prophet. 

In  ancient  and  also  in  modern  periods  we  find  a  few 
Poets  who  are  accounted  perfect ;  whom  it  were  a  kind  of 
treason  to  find  fault  with.  This  is  noteworthy;  this  is  right: 
yet  in  strictness  it  is  only  an  illusion.  At  bottom,  clearly 
enough,  there  is  no  perfect  Poet !  A  vein  of  Poetry  exists 
in  the  hearts  of  all  men;  no  man  is  made  altogether  of 
Poetry.  We  are  all  poets  when  we  read  a  poem  well. 
The  "imagination  that  shudders  at  the  Hell  of  Dante,"  is 
not  that  the  same  faculty,  weaker  in  degree,  as  Dante's 
own?  No  one  but  Shakspeare  can  embody,  out  of  Saxo 
Grammaticus,  the  story  of  Hamlet  as  Shakspeare  did :  but 
every  one  models  some  kind  of  story  out  of  it ;  every  one 
embodies  it  better  or  worse.  We  need  not  spend  time  in 
defining.     Where  there  is  no  specific  difference,  as  between 


92  LECTURES  OAT  HEROES. 

round  and  square,  all  definition  must  be  more  or  less  arbitrary. 
A  man  that  has  so  much  more  of  the  poetic  element  de- 
veloped in  him  as  to  have  become  noticeable,  will  be  called 
Poet  by  his  neighbors.  World-Poets  too,  those  whom  we  are 
to  take  for  perfect  Poets,  are  settled  by  critics  in  the  same 
way.  One  who  rises  so  far  above  the  general  level  of  Poets 
will,  to  such  and  such  critics,  seem  a  Universal  Poet;  as  he 
ought  to  do.  And  yet  it  is,  and  must  be,  an  arbitrary  dis- 
tinction. All  Poets,  all  men,  have  some  touches  of  the 
Universal ;  no  man  is  wholly  made  of  that.  Most  Poets  are 
very  soon  forgotten :  but  not  the  noblest  Shakspeare  or 
Homer  of  them  can  be  remembered  forever  j  —  a  day  comes 
when  he  too  is  not ! 

Nevertheless,  you  will  say,  there  must  be  a  difference  be- 
tween true  Poetry  and  true  Speech  not  poetical :  what  is  the 
difference  ?  On  this  point  many  things  have  been  written, 
especially  by  late  German  Critics,  some  of  which  are  not 
very  intelligible  at  first  They  say,  for  example,  that  the 
Poet  has  an  infinitude  in  him  ;  communicates  an  Unendlich* 
keit,  a  certain  character  of  "infinitude,"  to  whatsoever  he 
delineates.  This,  though  not  very  precise,  yet  on  so  vague  a 
matter  is  worth  remembering :  if  well  meditated,  some  mean- 
ing will  gradually  be  found  in  it.  For  my  own  part,  I  find 
considerable  meaning  in  the  old  vulgar  distinction  of  Poetry 
being  metrical,  having  music  in  it,  being  a  Song.  Truly,  if 
pressed  to  give  a  definition,  one  might  say  this  as  soon  as 
any  thing  else:  If  your  delineation  be  authentically  musical, 
musical  not  in  word  only,  but  in  heart  and  substance,  in  all 
the  thoughts  and  utterances  of  it,  in  the  whole  conception  of 
it,  then  it  will  be  poetical ;  if  not,  not.  —  Musical :  how  much 
lies  in  that !  A  musical  thought  is  one  spoken  by  a  mind  that 
has  penetrated  into  the  inmost  heart  of  the  thing:  detected 
the  inmost  mystery  of  it,  namely  the  melody  that  lies  hidden 


THE   HERO  AS  POET.  93 

in  it ;  the  inward  harmony  of  coherence  which  is  its  soul, 
whereby  it  exists,  and  has  a  right  to  be,  here  in  this  world. 
All  inmost  things,  we  may  say,  are  melodious  ;  naturally  utter 
themselves  in  Song.  The  meaning  of  Song  goes  deep. 
Who  is  there  that,  in  logical  words,  can  express  the  effect 
music  has  on  us  ?  A  kind  of  inarticulate  unfathomable 
speech,  which  leads  us  to  the  edge  of  the  Infinite,  and  lets 
us  for  moments  gaze  into  that ! 

Nay  all  speech,  even  the  commonest  speech,  has  some- 
thing of  song  in  it :  not  a  parish  in  the  world  but  has  its 
parish  accent; — the  rhythm  or  tune  to  which  the  people 
there  sing  what  they  have  to  say !  Accent  is  a  kind  of 
chanting;  all  men  have  accent  of  their  own,  —  though  they 
only  notice  that  of  others.  Observe  too*howall  passionate 
language  does  of  itself  become  musical,  —  with  a  finer 
music  than  the  mere  accent ;  the  speech  of  a  man  even  in 
zealous  anger  becomes  a  chant,  a  song.  All  deep  things  are 
Song.  It  seems  somehow  the  very  central  essence  of  us, 
Song;  as  if  all  the  rest  were  but  wrappages  and  hulls  !  The 
primal  element  of  us  ;  of  us,  and  of  all  things.  The  Greeks 
fabled  of  Sphere-Harmonies  :  it  was  the  feeling  they  had  of 
the  inner  structure  of  Nature ;  that  the  soul  of  all  her  voices 
and  utterances  was  perfect  music.  Poetry,  therefore,  we 
will  call  musical  Thought.  The  Poet  is  he  who  thinks  in 
that  manner.  At  bottom,  it  turns  still  on  power  of  intellect  ; 
it  is  a  man's  sincerity  and  depth  of  vision  that  makes  him  a 
Poet.  See  deep  enough,  and  you  see  musically ;  the  heart 
of  Nature  being  everywhere   music,  if  you  can  only  reach  it. 

The  Vates  Poet,  with  his  melodious  Apocalypse  of  Nature, 
seems  to  hold  a  poor  rank  among  us,  in  comparison  with  the 
Vates  Prophet ;  his  function,  and  our  esteem  of  him  for  his 
function,  alike  slight.  The  Hero  taken  as  Divinity ;  the  Hero 
taken  as  Prophet ;  then  next  the  Hero  taken  only  as  Poet : 


94  LECTURES   ON  HEROES. 

does  it  not  look  as  if  our  estimate  of  the  Great  Man,  epoch 
after  epoch,  were  continually  diminishing?  We  take  him 
first  for  a  god,  then  for  one  god-inspired ;  and  now  in  the 
next  stage  of  it,  his  most  miraculous  word  gains  from  us 
only  the  recognition  that  he  is  a  Poet,  beautiful  verse-maker, 
man  of  genius,  or  suchlike !  —  It  looks  so;  but  I  persuade 
myself  that  intrinsically  it  is  not  so.  If  we  consider  well,  it 
will  perhaps  appear  that  in  man  still  there  is  the  same  alto- 
gether peculiar  admiration  for  the  Heroic  Gift,  by  what  name 
soever  called,  that  there  at  any  time  was. 

I  should  say,  if  we  do  not  now  reckon  a  Great  Man  liter- 
ally divine,  it  is  that  our  notions  of  God,  of  the  supreme 
unattainable  Fountain  of  Splendor,  Wisdom  and  Heroism, 
are  ever  rising  higher;  not  altogether  that  our  reverence  for 
these  qualities,  as  manifested  in  our  like,  is  getting  lower. 
This  is  worth  taking  thought  of.  Sceptical  Dilettantism,  the 
curse  of  these  ages,  a  curse  which  will  not  last  forever,  does 
indeed  in  this  the. highest  province  of  human  things,  as  in 
all  provinces,  make  sad  work ;  and  our  reverence  for  great 
men,  all  crippled,  blinded,  paralytic  as  it  is,  comes  out  in 
poor  plight,  hardly  recognizable.  Men  worship  the  shows  of 
great  men;  the  most  disbelieve  that  there  is  any  reality 
of  great  men  to  worship.  The  dreariest,  fatalest  faith  ;  be- 
lieving which,  one  would  literally  despair  of  human  things. 
Nevertheless  look,  for  example,  at  Napoleon  !  A  Corsican 
lieutenant  of  artillery;  that  is  the  show  of  him:  yet  is  he 
not  obeyed,  worshipped  Biter  his  sort,  as  all  the  Tiamed  and 
Diademed  of  the  world  put  together  could  not  be  ?  High 
Duchesses,  and  hostlers  of  inns,  gather  round  the  Scottish 
rustic,  Burns;  — a  strange  feeling  dwelling  in  each  that 
they  never  heard  a  man  like  this  ;  that,  on  the  whole,  this  is 
the  man  !  In  the  secret  heart  of  these  people  it  still  dimly 
reveals  itself,  though  there  is  no  accredited  way  of  uttering  it 


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THE   HERO   AS  POET.  95 

at  present,  that  this  rustic,  with  his  black  brows  and  flashing 
sun-eyes,  and  strange  words  moving  laughter  and  tears,  is  of 
a  dignity  far  beyond  all  others,  incommensurable  with  all 
others.  Do  not  we  feel  it  so  ?  But  now,  were  Dilettantism, 
Scepticism,  Triviality,  and  all  that  sorrowful  brood,  cast  out 
a  us,  —  as,  by  God's  blessing,  they  shall  one  day  be;  were 
faith  in  the  shows  of  things  entirely  swept  out,  replaced  by 
clear  faith  in  the  things,  so  that  a  man  acted  on  the  impulse 
of  that  only,  and  counted  the  other  non-extant ;  what  a  new 
livelier  feeling  towards  this  Burns  were  it ! 

Nay  here  in  these  ages,  such  as  they  are,  have  we  not  two 
mere  Poets,  if  not  deified,  yet  we  may  say  beatified  ?  Shak- 
speare  and  Dante  are  Saints  of  Poetry;  really,  if  we  will 
think  of  it,  canonised,  so  that  it  is  impiety  to  meddle  with 
them.  The  unguided  instinct  of  the  world,  working  across 
all  these  perverse  impediments,  has  arrived  at  such  result. 
Dante  and  Shakspeare  are  a  peculiar  Two.  They  dwell 
apart,  in  a  kind  of  royal  solitude :  none  equal,  none  second 
to  them  :  in  the  general  feeling  of  the  world,  a  certain  tran- 
scendentalism, a  glory  as  of  complete  perfection,  invests 
these  two.  They  ai'e  canonized,  though  no  Pope  or  Cardinals 
took  hand  in  doing  it !  Such,  in  spite  of  every  perverting 
influence,  in  the  most  unheroic  times,  is  still  our  indestruc- 
tible reverence  for  heroism.  —  We  will  look  a  little  at  these 
Two,  the  Poet  Dante  and  the  Poet  Shakspeare  :  what  little 
it  is  permitted  us  to  say  here  of  the  Hero  as  Poet  will  most 
fitly  arrange  itself  in  that  fashion. 

Many  volumes  have  been  written  by  way  of  commentary 
on  Dante  and  his  Book ;  yet,  on  the  whole,  with  no  great 
result.  His  Biography  is,  as  it  were,  irrecoverably  lost  for 
us.  An  unimportant,  wandering,  sorrow-stricken  man,  not 
much  note  was  taken  of  him  while  he  lived ;  and  the  most 


g6  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

of  that  has  vanished,  in  the  long  space  that  now  intervenes. 
It  is  five  centuries  since  he  ceased  writing  and  living  here. 
After  all  commentaries,  the  Book  itself  is  mainly  what  we 
know  of  him.  The  Book  ;  —  and  one  might  add  that  Por- 
trait commonly  attributed  to  Giotto,  which,  looking  on  it, 
you  cannot  help  inclining  to  think  genuine,  whoever  did  it. 
To  me  it  is  a  most  touching  face  ;  perhaps  of  all  faces  that 
I  know,  the  most  so.  Lonely  there,  painted  as  on  vacancy, 
with  the  simple  laurel  wound  round  it ;  the  deathless  sorrow 
and  pain,  the  known  victory  which  is  also  deathless  ;  —  sig- 
nificant of  the  whole  history  of  Dante  !  I  think  it  is  the 
mournfulest  face  that  ever  was  painted  from  reality;  an 
altogether  tragic,  heart-affecting  face.  There  is  in  it,  as 
foundation  of  it,  the  softness,  tenderness,  gentle  affection,  as 
of  a  child  ;  but  all  this  is  as  if  congealed  into  sharp  contra- 
diction, into  abnegation,  isolation,  proud  hopeless  pain.  A 
soft  ethereal  soul  looking  out  so  stern,  implacable,  grim- 
trenchant,  as  from  imprisonment  of  thick-ribbed  ice  !  Withal 
it  is  a  silent  pain  too,  a  silent  scornful  one  :  the  lip  is  curled 
in  a  kind  of  godlike  disdain  of  the  thing  that  is  eating  out 
his  heart,  —  as  if  it  were  withal  a  mean  insignificant  thing, 
as  if  he  whom  it  had  power  to  torture  and  strangle  were 
greater  than  it.  The  face  of  one  wholly  in  protest,  and  life- 
long unsurrendering  battle,  against  the  world.  Affection 
all  converted  into  indignation  :  an  implacable  indignation ; 
slow,  equable,  silent,  like  that  of  a  god  !  The  eye  too,  it 
looks  out  as  in  a  kind  of  surprise,  a  kind  of  inquiry,  Why 
the  world  was  of  such  a  sort  ?  This  is  Dante  :  so  he  looks, 
this  "voice  of  ten  silent  centuries,"  and  sings  us  "his  mystic 
unfathomable  song." 

The  little  that  we  know  of  Dante's  Life  corresponds  well 
enough  with  this  Portrait  and  this  Book.  He  was  born  at 
Florence,  in  the  upper  class  of  society,  in  the  year  1265.     His 


a  most  touching  FACE.*-— Page  96. 


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OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE   HERO   AS  POET.  g? 

education  was  the  best  then  going;  much  school-divinity, 
A ristotelean  logic,  some  Latin  classics,  —  no  inconsiderable 
insight  into  certain  provinces  of  things :  and  Dante,  with  his 
earnest  intelligent  nature,  we  need  not  doubt,  learned  better 
than  most  all  that  was  learnable.  He  has  a  clear  cultivated 
understanding,  and  of  great  subtlety ;  this  best  fruit  of  edu- 
cation he  had  contrived  to  realize  from  these  scholastics. 
He  knows  accurately  and  well  what  lies  close  to  him ;  but, 
in  such  a  time,  without  printed  books  or  free  intercourse,  he 
could  not  know  well  what  was  distant:  the  small  clear  light, 
most  luminous  for  what  is  near,  breaks  itself  into  singular 
chiaroscuro  striking  on  what  is  far  off.  This  was  Dante's 
learning  from  the  schools.  In  life,  he  had  gone  through  the 
usual  destinies  ;  been  twice  out  campaigning  as  a  soldier  for 
the  Florentine  State,  been  on  embassy ;  had  in  his  thirty- 
fifth  year,  by  natural  gradation  of  talent  and  service,  become 
one  of  the  Chief  Magistrates  of  Florence.  He  had  met  in 
boyhood  a  certain  Beatrice  Portinari,  a  beautiful  little  girl  of 
his  own  age  and  rank,  and  grown  up  thenceforth  in  partial 
sight  of  her,  in  some  distant  intercourse  with  her.  All  read- 
ers know  his  graceful  affecting  account  of  this ;  and  then 
of  their  being  parted  ;  of  her  being  wedded  to  another,  and  of 
her  death  soon  after.  She  makes  a  great  figure  in  Dante's 
Poem ;  seems  to  have  made  a  great  figure  in  his  life.  Of  all 
beings  it  might  seem  as  if  she,  held  apart  from  him,  far  apart 
at  last  in  the  dim  Eternity,  were  the  only  one  he  had  ever 
with  his  whole  strength  of  affection  loved.  She  died :  Dante 
himself  was  wedded;  but  it  seems  not  happily,  far  from 
happily.  I  fancy,  the  rigorous  earnest  man,  with  his  keen 
excitabilities,  was  not  altogether  easy  to  make  happy. 

We  will  not  complain  of  Dante's  miseries :  had  all  gone 
right  with  him  as  he  wished  it,  he  might  have  been  Prior, 
Podesta,  or  whatsoever  they  call  it,  of  Florence,  well  accepted 


98  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

among  neighbors,  —  and  the  world  had  wanted  one  of  the 
most  notable  words  ever  spoken  or  sung.  Florence  would 
have  had  another  prosperous  Lord  Mayor ;  and  the  ten  dumb 
centuries  continued  voiceless,  and  the  ten  other  listening 
centuries  (for  there  will  be  ten  of  them  and  more)  had  no 
Divina  Commedia  to  hear!  We  will  complain  of  nothing. 
A  nobler  destiny  was  appointed  for  this  Dante ;  and  he, 
struggling  like  a  man  led  towards  death  and  crucifixion,  could 
not  help  fulfilling  it.  Give  him  the  choice  of  his  happiness  ! 
He  knew  not,  more  than  we  do,  what  was  really  happy,  what 
was  really  miserable. 

In  Dante's  Priorship,  the  Guelf-Ghibelline,  Bianchi-Neri, 
or  some  other  confused  disturbances  rose  to  such  a  height, 
that  Dante,  whose  party  had  seemed  the  stronger,  was  with 
his  friends  cast  unexpectedly  forth  into  banishment ;  doomed 
thenceforth  to  a  life  of  woe  and  wandering.  His  property 
was  all  confiscated  and  more ;  he  had  the  fiercest  feeling  that 
it  was  entirely  unjust,  nefarious  in  the  sight  of  God  and  man. 
He  tried  what  was  in  him  to  get  reinstated ;  tried  even  by 
warlike. surprisal,  with  arms  in  his  hand:  but  it  would  not 
do ;  bad  only  had  become  worse.  There  is  a  record,  I  be- 
lieve, still  extant  in  the  Florence  Archives,  dooming  this 
Dante,  wheresoever  caught,  to  be  burnt  alive.  Burnt  alive; 
so  it  stands,  they  say :  a  very  curious  civic  document.  An- 
other curious  document,  some  considerable  number  of  years 
later,  is  a  Letter  of  Dante's  to  the  Florentine  Magistrates, 
written  in  answer  to  a  milder  proposal  of  theirs,  that  he 
should  return  on  condition  of  apologizing  and  paying  a  fine. 
}ie  answers,  with  fixed  stern  pride :  "If  I  cannot  return 
without  calling  myself  guilty,  I  will  never  return,  nunquam 
i ever tar." 

For  Dante  there  was  now  no  home  in  this  world.  He 
pandered  from  patron  to  patron,  from  place  to  place ;  proving, 


THE  HERO   AS  POET.  99 

in  his  own  bitter  words,  "  How  hard  is  the  path,  Come  e  duro 
called  The  wretched  are  not  cheerful  company.  Dante, 
poor  and  banished,  with  his  proud  earnest  nature,  with  his 
moody  humors,  was  not  a  man  to  conciliate  men.  Petrarch 
reports  of  him  that  being  at  Can  della  Scala's  court,  and 
blamed  one  day  for  his  gloom  and  taciturnity,  he  answered  in 
no  courtier-like  way.  Della  Scala  stood  among  his  courtiers, 
with  mimes  and  buffoons  (ne&u/oues  ac  histriones)  making 
him  heartily  merry;  when  turning  to  Dante,  he  said:  "Is 
it  not  strange,  now,  that  this  poor  fool  should  make  him- 
self so  entertaining;  while  you,  a  wise  man,  sit  there  day 
after  day,  and  have  nothing  to  amuse  us  with  at  all  ?  "  Dante 
answered  bitterly :  "  No,  not  strange ;  your  Highness  is  to 
recollect  the  Proverb,  Like  to  Like;'1''  —  given  the  amuser, 
the  amusee  must  also  be  given  !  Such  a  man,  with  his  proud 
silent  ways,  with  his  sarcasms  and  sorrows,  was  not  made  to 
succeed  at  court.  By  degrees,  it  came  to  be  evident  to  him 
that  he  had  no  longer  any  resting-place,  or  hope  of  benefit, 
in  this  earth.  The  earthly  world  had  cast  him  forth,  to  wan- 
der, wander;  no  living  heart  to  love  him  now;  for  his  sore 
miseries  there  was  no  solace  here. 

The  deeper  naturally  would  the  Eternal  World  impress 
itself  on  him  ;  that  awful  reality  over  which,  after  all,  this 
Time-world,  with  its  Florences  and  banishments,  only  flutters 
as  an  unreal  shadow.  Florence  thou  shalt  never  see  :  but 
Hell  and  Purgatory  and  Heaven  thou  shalt  surely  see ! 
What  is  Florence,  Can  della  Scala,  and  the  World  and  Life 
altogether?  Eternity:  thither,  of  a  truth,  not  elsewhither, 
art  thou  and  all  things  bound  !  The  great  soul  of  Dante, 
homeless  on  earth,  made  its  home  more  and  more  in  that 
awful  other  world.  Naturally  his  thoughts  brooded  on  that, 
as  on  the  one  fact  important  for  him.  Bodied  or  bodiless,  it 
is  the  one  fact  important  for  all  men ;  —  but  to  Dante,  in  that 


IOO  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

age,  it  was  bodied  in  fixed  certainty  of  scientific  shape  :  he  no 
more  doubted  of  that  Malebolge  Pool,  that  it  all  lay  there 
with  its  gloomy  circles,  with  its  alti  guai,  and  that  he  himself 
should  see  it,  than  we  doubt  that  we  should  see  Constanti- 
nople if  we  went  thither.  Dante's  heart,  long  filled  with  this, 
brooding  over  it  in  speechless  thought  and  awe,  bursts  forth 
at  length  into  "mystic  unfathomable  song;"  and  this  his 
Divine  Comedy,  the  most  remarkable  of  all  modern  Books, 
is  the  result. 

It  must  have  been  a  great  solacement  to  Dante,  and  was, 
as  we  can  see,  a  proud  thought  for  him  at  times,  That  he, 
here  in  exile,  could  do  this  work ;  that  no  Florence,  nor  no 
man  or  men,  could  hinder  him  from  doing  it,  or  even  much 
help  him  in  doing  it.  He  knew  too,  partly,  that  it  was  great ; 
the  greatest  a  man  could  do.  "  If  thou  follow  thy  star,  Se  tu 
segui  tua  stella"  —  so  could  the  Hero,  in  his  forsakenness, 
in  his  extreme  need,  still  say  to  himself :  "  Follow  thou  thy 
star,  thou  shalt  not  fail  of  a  glorious  haven !  "  The  labor  of 
writing,  we  find,  and  indeed  could  know  otherwise,  was  great 
and  painful  for  him  ;  he  says,  This  Book,  "which  has  made 
me  lean  for  many  years."  Ah  yes,  it  was  won,  all  of  it,  with 
pain  and  sore  toil,  —  not  in  sport,  but  in  grim  earnest.  His 
Book,  as  indeed  most  good  Books  are,  has  been  written,  in 
many  senses,  with  his  heart's  blood.  It  is  his  whole  history, 
this  Book.  He  died  after  finishing  it;  not  yet  very  old,  at 
the  age  of  fifty-six ;  broken-hearted  rather,  as  is  said.  He 
lies  buried  in  his  death-city  Ravenna :  Hie  claudor  Dantes 
patriis  extorris  ab  oris.  The  Florentines  begged  back  his 
body,  in  a  century  after ;  the  Ravenna  people  would  not  give 
it.  "Here  am  I  Dante  laid,  shut  out  from  my  native 
shores." 

I  said,  Dante's  poem  was  a  song  :  It  is  Tieck  who  calls  it 
"  a  mystic  unfathomable  Song ; "  and  such  is  literally  the 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  POET.  lot 

character  of  it.  Coleridge  remarks  very  pertinently  some- 
where, that  wherever  you  find  a  sentence  musically  worded, 
of  true  rhythm  and  melody  in  the  words,  there  is  something 
deep  and  good  in  the  meaning  too.  For  body  and  soul, 
word  and  idea,  go  strangely  together  here  as  everywhere. 
Song :  we  said  before,  it  was  the  Heroic  of  Speech  !  All  old 
Poems,  Homer's  and  the  rest,  are  authentically  Songs.  I 
would  say,  in  strictness,  that  all  right  Poems  are  ;  that  what- 
soever is  not  sung  is  properly  no  Poem,  but  a  piece  of  Prose 
cramped  into  jingling  lines,  —  to  the  great  injury  of  the 
grammar,  to  the  great  grief  of  the  reader,  for  most  part ! 
What  we  want  to  get  at  is  the  thought  the  man  had,  if  he  had 
any:  why  should  he  twist  it  into  jingle,  if  he  could  speak  it 
out  plainly?  It  is  only  when  the  heart  of  him  is  rapt  into 
true  passion  of  melody,  and  the  very  tones  of  him,  according 
to  Coleridge's  remark,  become  musical  by  the  greatness, 
<}epth  and  music  of  his  thoughts,  that  we  can  give  him  right 
to  rhyme  and  sing ;  that  we  call  him  a  Poet,  and  listen  to  him 
as  the  Heroic  of  Speakers,  —  whose  speech  is  Song.  Pre- 
tenders to  this  are  many ;  and  to  an  earnest  reader,  I  doubt, 
it  is  for  most  part  a  very  melancholy,  not  to  say  an  insup- 
portable business,  that  of  reading  rhyme  !  Rhyme  that  had 
no  inward  necessity  to  be  rhymed;  — it  ought  to  have  told  us 
plainly,  without  any  jingle,  what  it  was  aiming  at.  I  would 
advise  all  men  who  can  speak  their  thought,  not  to  sing  it ; 
to  understand  that,  in  a  serious  time,  among  serious  men, 
there  is  no  vocation  in  them  for  singing  it.  Precisely  as 
we  love  the  true  song,  and  are  charmed  by  it  as  by  some- 
thing divine,  so  shall  we  hate  the  false  song,  and  account  it  a 
mere  wooden  noise,  a  thing  hollow,  superfluous,  altogether 
an  insincere  and  offensive  thing. 

I  give  Dante  my  highest  praise  when  I  say  of  his  Divine 
Comedy  that  it  is,  in  all  senses,  genuinely  a  Song.     In  the 


102  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

very  sound  of  it  there  is  a  canto  fermo  j  it  proceeds  as  by  a 
chant.  The  language,  his  simple  terza  rima,  doubtless 
helped  him  in  this.  One  reads  along  naturally  with  a  sort 
of  lilt.  But  I  add,  that  it  could  not  be  otherwise  ;  for  the 
essence  and  material  of  the  work  are  themselves  rhythmic. 
Its  depth,  and  rapt  passion  and  sincerity,  make  it  musical ; 
—  go  deep  enough,  there  is  music  everywhere.  A  true  in- 
ward symmetry,  what  one  calls  an  architectural  harmony, 
reigns  in  it,  proportionates  it  all:  architectural;  which  also 
partakes  of  the  character  of  music.  The  three  kingdoms, 
Inferno,  Purgatorio,  Paradiso,  look  out  on  one  another  like 
compartments  of  a  great  edifice  ;  a  great  supernatural  world- 
cathedral,  piled  up  there,  stern,  solemn,  awful ;  Dante's 
World  of  Souls  !  It  is,  at  bottom,  the  shicerestoi  all  Poems  ; 
sincerity,  here  too,  we  find  to  be  the  measure  of  worth.  It 
came  deep  out  of  the  author's  heart  of  hearts  ;  and  it  goes 
deep,  and  through  long  generations,  into  ours.  The  people 
of  Verona,  when  they  saw  him  on  the  streets,  used  to  say, 
"  Eccovi  P  uorn  cli>  e  stato  aW  Inferno,  See,  there  is  the  man 
that  was  in  Hell !  "  Ah  yes,  he  had  been  in  Hell  ;  —  in  Hell 
enough,  in  long  severe  sorrow  and  struggle  ;  as  the  like  of 
him  is  pretty  sure  to  have  been.  Commedias  that  come  out 
divine  are  not  accomplished  otherwise.  Thought,  true  labor 
of  any  kind,  highest  virtue  itself,  is  it  not  the  daughter  of 
Pain  ?  Born  as  out  of  the  black  whirlwind  ;  —  true  effort,  in 
fact,  as  of  a  captive  struggling  to  free  himself:  that  is 
Thought.  In  all  ways  we  are  "  to  become  perfect  through 
suffering."''  —  But,  as  I  say,  no  work  known  to  me  is  so 
elaborated  as  this  of  Dante's.  It  has  all  been  as  if  molten, 
in  the  hottest  furnace  of  his  soul.  It  had  made  him  "  lean  " 
for  many  years.  Not  the  general  whole  only ;  every  com- 
partment of  it  is  worked  out,  with  intense  earnestness,  into 
truth,  into  clear  visuality.     Each  answers  to  the  other  ;  each 


T//E  HERO  AS  POET.  103 

fits  in  its  place,  like  a  marble  stone  accurately  hewn  and 
polished.  It  is  the  soul  of  Dante,  and  in  this  the  soul  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  rendered  forever  rhythmically  visible  there. 
No  light  task ;  a  right  intense  one :  but  a  task  which  is  done. 
Perhaps  one  would  say,  intensity,  with  the  much  that  de- 
pends on  it,  is  the  prevailing  character  of  Dante's  genius. 
Dante  does  not  come  before  us  as  a  large  catholic  mind ; 
rather  as  a  narrow,  and  even  sectarian  mind :  it  is  partly 
the  fruit  of  his  age  and  position,  but  partly  too  of  his  own 
nature.  His  greatness  has,  in  all  senses,  concentred  into 
fiery  emphasis  and  depth.  He  is  world-great  not  because  he 
is  world-wide,  but  because  he  is  world-deep.  Through  all 
objects  he  pierces  as  it  were  down  into  the  heart  of  Being. 
I  know  nothing  so  intense  as  Dante.  Consider,  for  example, 
to  begin  with  the  outermost  development  of  his  intensity, 
consider  how  he  paints.  He  has  a  great  power  of  vision ; 
seizes  the  very  type  of  a  thing;  presents  that  and  nothing 
more.  You  remember  that  first  view  he  gets  of  the  Hall  of 
Dite :  red  pinnacle,  red-hot  cone  of  iron  glowing  through 
the  dim  immensity  of  gloom  ;  —  so  vivid,  so  distinct,  visible 
at  once  and  forever  1  It  is  as  an  emblem  of  the  whole  genius 
of  Dante.  There  is  a  brevity,  an  abrupt  precision  in  him  : 
Tacitus  is  not  briefer,  more  condensed  ;  and  then  in  Dante 
it  seems  a  natural  condensation,  spontaneous  to  the  man. 
One  smiting  word  ;  and  then  there  is  silence,  nothing  more 
said.  His  silence  is  more  eloquent  than  words.  It  is  strange 
with  what  a  sharp  decisive  grace  he  snatches  the  true  like- 
ness of  a  matter :  cuts  into  the  matter  as  with  a  pen  of  fire. 
Plutus,  the  blustering  giant,  collapses  at  Virgil's  rebuke ;  it 
is  "as  the  sails  sink,  the  mast  being  suddenly  broken."  Or 
that  poor  Brunetto  Latini,  with  the  cotto  aspetto,  "face 
baked,''1  parched  brown  and  lean  ;  and  the  "  fiery  snow  " 
that  falls  on  them  there,  a  "  fiery  snow  without  wind,"  slow, 


104  LECTURES  OAT  HEROES. 

deliberate,  never-ending !  Or  the  lids  of  those  Tombs ; 
square  sarcophaguses,  in  that  silent  dim-burning  Hall,  each 
with  its  Soul  in  torment ;  the  lids  laid  open  there  ;  they  are 
to  be  shut  at  the  Day  of  Judgment,  through  Eternity.  And 
how  Farinata  rises  ;  and  how  Cavalcante  falls  —  at  hearing 
of  his  Son,  and  the  past  tense  "  fue  "  !  The  very  movements 
in  Dante  have  something  brief ;  swift,  decisive,  almost  mili- 
tary. It  is  of  the  inmost  essence  of  his  genius  this  sort  of 
painting.  The  fiery,  swift  Italian  nature  of  the  man,  so 
silent  passionate,  with  its  quick  abrupt  movements,  its 
silent,  "pale  rages,"  speaks  itself  in  these  things. 

For  though  this  of  painting  is  one  of  the  outermost  de- 
velopments of  a  man,  it  comes  like  all  else  from  the  essential 
faculty  of  him ;  it  is  physiognomical  of  the  whole  man. 
Find  a  man  whose  words  paint  you  a  likeness,  you  have 
found  a  man  worth  something;  mark  his  manner  of  doing 
it,  as  very  characteristic  of  him.  In  the  first  place,  he  could 
not  have  discerned  the  object  at  all,  or  seen  the  vital  type  of 
it,  unless  he  had,  what  we  may  call,  sympathized  with  it,  — 
had  sympathy  in  him  to  bestow  on  objects.  He  must  have 
been  sincere  about  it  too ;  sincere  and  sympathetic :  a  man 
without  worth  cannot  give  you  the  likeness  of  any  object  ; 
he  dwells  in  vague  outwardness,  fallacy  and  trivial  hearsay, 
about  all  objects.  And  indeed  may  we  not  say  that  intellect 
altogether  expresses  itself  in  this  power  of  discerning  what 
an  object  is?  Whatsoever  of  faculty  a  man's  mind  may 
have  will  come  out  here.  Is  it  even  of  business,  a  matter  to 
be  done?  The  gifted  man  is  he  who  sees  the  essential 
point,  and  leaves  all  the  rest  aside  as  surplusage :  it  is  his 
faculty  too,  the  man  of  business's  faculty,  that  he  discern 
the  true  likeness,  not  the  false  superficial  one,  of  the  thing 
he  has  got  to  work  in.  And  how  much  of  morality  is  in 
the  kind  of  insight  we  get  of  any  thing;  "the  eye  seeing 


The  hero  as  poet.  to$ 

in  all  things  what  it  brought  with  it  the  faculty  of  seeing"! 
To  the  mean  eye  all  things  are  trivial,  as  certainly  as  to  the 
jaundiced  they  are  yellow.  Raphael,  the  Painters  tell  us,  is 
the  best  of  all  Portrait-painters  withal.  No  most  gifted  eye 
can  exhaust  the  significance  of  any  object.  In  the  com- 
monest human  face  there  lies  more  than  Raphael  will  take 
away  with  him. 

Dante's  painting  is  not  graphic  only,  brief,  true,  and  of  a 
vividness  as  of  fire  in  dark  night ;  taken  on  the  wider  scale, 
it  is  every  way  noble,  and  the  outcome  of  a  great  soul. 
Francesca  and  her  Lover,  what  qualities  in  that !  A  thing 
woven  as  out  of  rainbows,  on  a  ground  of  eternal  black.  ^  A 
small  flute-voice  of  infinite  wail  speaks  there,  into  our  very 
heart  of  hearts.  A  touch  of  womanhood  in  it  too :  della 
bella  persona,  che  mi  fu  tolta ;  and  how,  even  in  the  Pit  of 
woe,  it  is  a  solace  that  he  will  never  part  from  her !  Saddest 
tragedy  in  these  alti guai.  And  the  racking  winds,  in  that 
aerbruno,  whirl  them  away  again,  to  wail  forever !  —  Strange 
to  think :  Dante  was  the  friend  of  this  poor  Francesca's 
father  ;  Francesca  herself  may  have  sat  upon  the  Poet's  knee, 
as  a  bright  innocent  little  child.  Infinite  pity,  yet  also  infinite 
rigor  of  law :  it  is  so  Nature  is  made ;  it  is  so  Dante  dis- 
cerned that  she  was  made.  What  a  paltry  notion  is  that  of 
his  Divine  Comedy's  being  a  poor  splenetic  impotent  terres- 
trial libel;  putting  those  into  Hell  whom  he  could  not  be 
avenged  upon  on  earth !  I  suppose  if  ever  pity,  tender  as 
a  mother's,  was  in  the  heart  of  any  man,  it  was  in  Dante's. 
But  a  man  who  does  not  know  rigor  cannot  pity  either.  His 
very  pity  will  be  cowardly,  egoistic,  —  sentimentality,  or  little 
better.  I  know  not  in  the  world  an  affection  equal  to  that 
of  Dante.  It  is  a  tenderness,  a  trembling,  longing,  pitying 
love  :  like  the  wail  of  jEolean  harps,  soft,  soft;  like  a  child's 
young  heart ;  —  and   then  that   stern,  sore-saddened  heart ! 


106  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

These  longings  of  his  towards  his  Beatrice ;  their  meeting 
together  in  the  Paradiso;  his  gazing  in  her  pure  trans- 
figured eyes,  her  that  had  been  purified  by  death  so  long, 
separated  from  him  so  far:  —  one  likens  it  to  the  song  of 
angels ;  it  is  among  the  purest  utterances  of  affection, 
perhaps  the  very  purest,  that  ever  came  out  of  a  human 
soul. 

For  the  intense  Dante  is  intense  in  all  things  ;  he  has  got 
into  the  essence  of  all.  His  intellectual  insight  as  painter, 
on  occasion  too  as  reasoner,  is  but  the  result  of  all  other 
sorts  of  intensity.  Morally  great,  above  all,  we  must  call 
him  ;  it  is  the  beginning  of  all.  His  scorn,  his  grief,  are  as 
transcendent  as  his  love;  —  as  indeed,  what  are  they  but  the 
inverse  or  converse  of  his  love  ?  "  A  Dio  spiacenti  ed  a? 
nemici  stu,  Hateful  to  God  and  to  the  enemies  of  God  :  "  lofty 
scorn,  unappeasable  silent  reprobation  and  aversion ;  "  Non 
ragionatn  di  lor,  We  will  not  speak  of  them,  look  only  and 
pass."  Or  think  of  this  ;  "  They  have  not  the  hope  to  die, 
Non  han  speranza  di  morte."  One  day,  it  had  risen  sternly 
benign  on  the  scathed  heart  of  Dante,  that  he,  wretched, 
never-resting,  worn  as  he  was,  would  full  surely  die;  "that 
Destiny  itself  could  not  doom  him  not  to  die."  Such  words 
are  in  this  man.  For  rigor,  earnestness  and  depth,  he  is  not 
to  be  paralleled  in  the  modern  world ;  to  seek  his  parallel  we 
must  go  into  the  Hebrew  Bible,  and  live  with  the  antique 
Prophets  there. 

I  do  not  agree  with  much  modern  criticism,  in  greatly  pre- 
ferring the  Inferno  to  the  two  other  parts  of  the  Divine 
Commedia.  Such  preference  belongs,  I  imagine,  to  our 
general  Byronism  of  taste,  and  is  like  to  be  a  transient  feel- 
ing. The  Pnrgatorio  and  Paradiso,  especially  the  former, 
one  would  almost  say,  is  even  more  excellent  than  it.  It  is 
a  noble  thing  that  Purgatorio,  "  Mountain  of  Purification ;  " 


THE  HERO  AS  POET.  \0j 

an  emblem  of  the  noblest  conception  of  that  age.  If  Sin 
is  so  fatal,  and  Hell  is  and  must  be  so  rigorous,  awful,  yet 
in  Repentance  too  is  man  purified ;  Repentance  is  the  grand 
Christian  act.  It  is  beautiful  how  Dante  works  it  out.  The 
tremolar  delV  onde,  that  "trembling"  of  the  ocean-waves, 
under  the  first  pure  gleam  of  morning,  dawning  afar  on  the 
wandering  Two,  is  as  the  type  of  an  altered  mood.  Hope 
has  now  dawned ;  never-dying  Hope,  if  in  company  still 
with  heavy  sorrow.  The  obscure  sojourn  of  demons  and 
reprobate  is  underfoot ;  a  soft  breathing  of  penitence  mounts 
higher  and  higher,  to  the  Throne  of  Mercy  itself.  "  Pray 
for  me,"  the  denizens  of  that  Mount  of  Pain  all  say  to  him. 
"  Tell  my  Giovanna  to  pray  for  me,"  my  daughter  Giovanna ; 
"  I  think  her  mother  loves  me  no  more  !  "  They  toil  pain- 
fully up  by  that  winding  steep,  "  bent  down  like  corbels  of  a 
building,"  some  of  them,  —  crushed  together  so  "for  the 
sin  of  pride ; "  yet  nevertheless  in  years,  in  ages  and  aeons, 
they  shall  have  reached  the  top,  which  is  Heaven's  gate, 
and  by  Mercy  shall  have  been  admitted  in.  The  joy  too  of 
all,  when  one  has  prevailed;  the  whole  Mountain  shakes 
with  joy,  and  a  psalm  of  praise  rises,  when  one  soul  has 
perfected  repentance  and  got  its  sin  and  misery  left  be- 
hind !  I  call  all  this  a  noble  embodiment  of  a  true  noble 
thought. 

But  indeed  the  Three  compartments  mutually  support  one 
another,  are  indispensable  to  one  another.  The  Paradiso,  a 
kind  of  inarticulate  music  to  me,  is  the  redeeming  side  of  the 
Inferno;  the  Inferno  without  it  were  untrue.  All  three  make 
up  the  true  Unseen  World,  as  figured  in  the  Christianity  of 
the  Middle  Ages  ;  a  thing  forever  memorable,  forever  true 
in  the  essence  of  it,  to  all  men.  It  was  perhaps  delineated  in 
no  human  soul  with  such  depth  of  veracity  as  in  this  of 
Dante's ;  a  man  sent  to  sing  it,  to  keep  it  long  memorable. 


108  LECTURES  OAT  HEROES. 

Very  notable  with  what  brief  simplicity  he  passes  out  of 
the  every-day  reality,  into  the  Invisible  one ;  and  in  the 
second  or  third  stanza,  we  find  ourselves  in  the  World  of 
Spirits  ;  and  dwell  there,  as  among  things  palpable,  indubita- 
ble !  To  Dante  they  were  so ;  the  real  world,  as  it  is 
called,  and  its  facts,  was  but  the  threshold  to  an  infinitely 
higher  Fact  of  a  World.  At  bottom,  the  one  was  as 
preternatural  as  the  other.  Has  not  each  man  a  soul  ?  He 
will  not  only  be  a  spirit,  but  is  one.  To  the  earnest  Dante 
it  is  all  one  visible  Fact;  he  believes  it,  sees  it;  is  the  Poet 
of  it  in  virtue  of  that.  Sincerity,  I  say  again,  is  the  saving 
merit,  now  as  always. 

Dante's  Hell,  Purgatory,  Paradise,  are  a  symbol  withal,  an 
emblematic  representation  of  his  Belief  about  this  Uni- 
verse :  — some  Critic  in  a  future  age,  like  those  Scandinavian 
ones  the  other  day,  who  has  ceased  altogether  to  think  as 
Dante  did,  may  find  this  too  all  an  "  Allegory,"  perhaps  an 
idle  Allegory  !  It  is  a  sublime  embodiment,  or  sublimest, 
of  the  soul  of  Christianity.  It  expresses,  as  in  huge  world- 
wide architectural  emblems,  how  the  Christian  Dante  felt 
Good  and  Evil  to  be  the  two  polar  elements  of  this  Creation, 
on  which  it  all  turns ;  that  these  two  differ  not  by  pre- 
ferability  of  one  to  the  other,  but  by  incompatibility  absolute 
and  infinite  ;  that  the  one  is  excellent  and  high  as  light  and 
Heaven,  the  other  hideous,  black  as  Gehenna  and  the  Pit 
of  Hell !  Everlasting  Justice,  yet  with  Penitence,  with 
everlasting  Pity,  —  all  Christianism,  as  Dante  and  the  Middle 
Ages  had  it,  is  emblemed  here.  Emblemed  :  and  yet,  as  I 
urged  the  other  day,  with  what  entire  truth  of  purpose  ; 
how  unconscious  of  any  embleming !  Hell,  Purgatory,  Para- 
dise :  these  things  were  not  fashioned  as  emblems ;  was 
there,  in  our  Modern  European  Mind,  any  thought  at  all 
of  their  being  emblems  ?     Were  they  not  indubitable  awful 


THE   HERO  AS  POET.  IO9 

facts ;  the  whole  heart  of  man  taking  them  for  practically 
true,  all  Nature  everywhere  confirming  them  ?  So  is  it 
always  in  these  things.  Men  do  not  believe  an  Allegory. 
The  future  Critic,  whatever  his  new  thought  may  be,  who 
considers  this  of  Dante  to  have  been  all  got  up  as  an 
Allegory,  will  commit  one  sore  mistake  !  —  Paganism  we 
recognized  as  a  veracious  expression  of  the  earnest  awe- 
struck feeling  of  man  toward  the  Universe  ;  veracious,  true 
once,  and  still  not  without  worth  for  us.  But  mark  here  the 
difference  of  Paganism  and  Christianism ;  one  great  dif- 
ference. Paganism  emblemed  chiefly  the  Operations  of 
Nature ;  the  destinies,  efforts,  combinations,  vicissitudes, 
of  things  and  men  in  this  world ;  Christianism  emblemed 
the  Law  of  Human  Duty,  the  Moral  Law  of  Man.  One  was 
for  the  sensuous  nature  :  a  rude  helpless  utterance  of  the 
first  Thought  of  men,  —  the  chief  recognized  virtue,  Cour- 
age, Superiority  to  Fear.  The  other  was  not  for  the 
sensuous  nature,  but  for  the  moral.  What  a  progress  is 
here,  if  in  that  one  respect  only  !  — 

And  so  in  this  Dante,  as  we  said,  had  ten  silent  centuries, 
in  a  very  strange  way,  found  a  voice.  The  Divina  Commedia 
is  of  Dante's  writing;  yet  in  truth  it  belongs  to  ten  Christian 
centuries,  only  the  finishing  of  it  is  Dante's.  So  always. 
The  craftsman  there,  the  smith  with  that  metal  of  his,  with 
these  tools,  with  these  cunning  methods,  —  how  little  of  all 
he  does  is  properly  his  work  !  All  past  inventive  men  work 
there  with  him;  —  as  indeed  with  all  of  us,  in  all  things. 
Dante  is  the  spokesman  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  the  Thought 
they  lived  by  stands  here,  in  everlasting  music.  These 
sublime  ideas  of  his,  terrible  and  beautiful,  are  the  fruit  of 
the  Christian  Meditation  of  all  the  good  men  who  had  gone 
before  him,     Precious  they ;    but  also  is  !K>t  he  precious  ? 


IIO  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Much,  had  not  he  spoken,  would  have  been  dumb  ;  not  dead, 
yet  living  voiceless. 

On  the  whole,  is  it  not  an  utterance,  this  mystic  Song,  at 
once  of  one  of  the  greatest  human  souls,  and  of  the  highest 
thing  that  Europe  had  hitherto  realized  for  itself?  Chris- 
tianism,  as  Dante  sings  it,  is  another  than  Paganism  in  the 
rude  Norse  mind;  another  than  "Bastard  Christianism " 
half-articulately  spoken  in  the  Arab  Desert  seven  hundred 
years  before  !  —  The  noblest  idea  made  real  hitherto  among 
men,  is  sung,  and  emblemed  forth  abidingly,  by  one  of  the 
noblest  men.  In  the  one  sense  and  in  the  other,  are  we  not 
right  glad  to  possess  it?  As  I  calculate,  it  may  last  yet  for 
long  thousands  of  years.  For  the  thing  that  is  uttered  from 
the  inmost  parts  of  a  man's  soul,  differs  altogether  from  what 
is  uttered  by  the  outer  part.  The  outer  is  of  the  day,  under 
the  empire  of  mode  ;  the  outer  passes  away,  in  swift  endless 
changes ;  the  inmost  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day  and  for- 
ever. True  souls,  in  all  generations  of  the  world,  who  look 
on  this  Dante,  will  find  a  brotherhood  in  him ;  the  deep  sin- 
cerity of  his  thoughts,  his  woes  and  hopes,  will  speak  like- 
wise to  their  sincerity ;  they  will  feel  that  this  Dante  too  was 
a  brother.  Napoleon  in  Saint-Helena  is  charmed  with  the 
genial  veracity  of  old  Homer.  The  oldest  Hebrew  Prophet, 
under  a  vesture  the  most  diverse  from  ours,  does  yet,  because 
he  speaks  from  the  heart  of  man,  speak  to  all  men's  hearts. 
It  is  the  one  sole  secret  of  continuing  long  memorable. 
Dante,  for  depth  of  sincerity,  is  like  an  antique  Prophet  too ; 
his  words,  like  theirs,  come  from  his  very  heart.  One  need 
not  wonder  if  it  were  predicted  that  his  Poem  might  be  the 
most  enduring  thing  our  Europe  has  yet  made  ;  for  nothing 
so  endures  as  a  truly  spoken  word.  All  cathedrals,  pontifi- 
calities,  brass  and  stone,  and  outer  arrangement  never  so 
lasting,  are  brief  in  comparison  to  an  unfathomable  heart' 


THE   HERO   AS  POET.  Ill 

song  like  this :  one  feels  as  if  it  might  survive,  still  of  im- 
portance to  men,  when  these  had  all  sunk  into  new  irrecog- 
nizable  combinations,  and  had  ceased  individually  to  be. 
Europe  has  made  much ;  great  cities,"  great  empires,  ency- 
clopaedias, creeds,  bodies  of  opinion  and  practice  :  but  it  has 
made  little  of  the  class  of  Dante's  Thought.  Homer  yet  is, 
veritably  present  face  to  face  with  every  open  soul  of  us ;  and 
Greece,  where  is  it?  Desolate  for  thousands  of  years  ;  away, 
vanished ;  a  bewildered  heap  of  stones  and  rubbish,  the  life 
and  existence  of  it  all  gone.  Like  a  dream;  like  the  dust 
of  King  Agamemnon  !  Greece  was  ;  Greece,  except  in  the 
words  it  spoke,  is  not. 

The  uses  of  this  Dante  ?  We  will  not  say  much  about  his 
"  uses."  A  human  soul  who  has  once  got  into  that  primal 
element  of  Song,  and  sung  forth  fitly  somewhat  therefrom, 
has  worked  in  the  depths  of  our  existence ;  feeding  through 
long  times  the  Yiie-roots  of  all  excellent  human  things  what- 
soever,—  in  a  way  that  "utilities  "  will  not  succeed  well  in 
calculating !  We  will  not  estimate  the  Sun  by  the  quantity 
of  gas-light  it  saves  us ;  Dante  shall  be  invaluable,  or  of  no 
value.  One  remark  I  may  make  :  the  contrast  in  this  respect 
between  the  Hero-Poet  and  the  Hero-Prophet,  In  a  hun- 
dred years,  Mahomet,  as  we  saw,  had  his  Arabians  at  Gre- 
nada and  at  Delhi ;  Dante's  Italians  seem  to  be  yet  very  much 
where  they  were.  Shall  we  say,  then,  Dante's  effect  on  the 
world  was  small  in  comparison  ?  Not  so :  his  arena  is  far 
more  restricted  ;  but  also  it  is  far  nobler,  clearer ;  —  perhaps 
not  less  but  more  important.  Mahomet  speaks  to  great 
masses  of  men,  in  the  coarse  dialect  adapted  to  such ;  a 
dialect  filled  with  inconsistencies,  crudities,  follies  :  on  the 
great  masses  alone  can  he  act,  and  there  with  good  and  with 
evil  strangely  blended.  Dante  speaks  to  the  noble,  the  pure 
and  great,  in  all  times  and  places.     Neither  does  he  grovr 


112  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

obsolete,  as  the  other  does.  Dante  burns  as  a  pure  star, 
fixed  there  in  the  firmament,  at  which  the  great  and  the  high 
of  all  ages  kindle  themselves :  he  is  the  possession  of  all  the 
chosen  of  the  world  for  uncounted  time.  Dante,  one  calcu- 
lates, may  long  survive  Mahomet.  In  this  way  the  balance 
may  be  made  straight  again. 

But,  at  any  rate,  it  is  not  by  what  is  called  their  effect  on 
the  world  by  what  we  can  judge  of  their  effect  there,  that  a 
man  and  his  work  are  measured.  Effect?  Influence?  Util- 
ity ?  Let  a  man  do  his  work  ;  the  fruit  of  it  is  the  care  of 
Another  than  he.  It  will  grow  its  own  fruit;  and  whether 
embodied  in  Caliph  Thrones  and  Arabian  Conquests,  so 
that  it  "  fills  all  Morning  and  Evening  Newspapers,"  and  all 
Histories,  which  are  a  kind  of  distilled  Newspapers;  or  not 
embodied  so  at  all ;  —  what  matters  that  ?  That  is  not  the 
real  fruit  of  it !  The  Arabian  Caliph,  in  so  far  only  as  he  did 
something,  was  something.  If  the  great  Cause  of  Man,  and 
Man's  work  in  God's  Earth,  got  no  furtherance  from  the 
Arabian  Caliph,  then  no  matter  how  many  cimeters  he  drew, 
how  many  gold  piasters  pocketed,  and  what  uproar  and  blar- 
ing he  made  in  this  world,  —  he  was  but  a  loud-sounding 
inanity  and  futility ;  at  bottom,  he  was  not  at  all.  Let  us 
honor  the  great  empire  of  Silence,  once  more  !  The  bound- 
less treasury  which  we  do  not  jingle  in  our  pockets,  or  count 
up  and  present  before  men !  It  is  perhaps,  of  all  things,  the 
usefulest  for  each  of  us  to  do,  in  these  loud  times. 

As  Dante,  the  Italian  man,  was  sent  into  our  world  to 
embody  musically  the  Religion  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Relb 
gion  of  our  Modern  Europe,  its  Inner  Life;  so  Shakspeare, 
we  may  say,  embodies  for  us  the  Outer  Life  of  our  Europe 
as  developed  then,  its  chivalries,  courtesies,  humors,  ambi- 
tions, what  practical  way  of  thinking,  acting,  looking  at  the 


BORN    AS   OUT   OF  THE    BLACK  WHIRLWIND  J —TRUE    EFFORT,    IN    FACT,  AS   OF   A 
CAPTIVE  STRUGGLING  TO  FREE  HIMSELF  :    THAT  IS  THOUGHT." — Page  102. 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  «MS 


THE  HERO  AS  POET.  113 

world,  men  then  had.  As  in  Homer  we  may  still  construe 
Old  Greece ;  so  in  Shakspeare  and  Dante,  after  thousands  of 
years,  what  our  modern  Europe  was,  in  Faith  and  in  Prac- 
tice, will  still  be  legible.  Dante  has  given  us  the  Faith  or 
soul;  Shakspeare,  in  a  not  less  noble  way,  has  given  us  the 
Practice  or  body.  This  latter  also  we  were  to  have ;  a  man 
was  sent  for  it,  the  man  Shakspeare.  Just  when  that  chiv- 
alry way  of  life  had  reached  its  last  finish,  and  was  on  the 
point  of  breaking  down  into  slow  or  swift  dissolution,  as  we 
now  see  it  everywhere,  this  other  sovereign  Poet,  with  his 
seeing  eye,  with  his  perennial  singing  voice,  was  sent  to  take 
note  of  it,  to  give  long-enduring  record  of  it.  Two  fit  men : 
Dante,  deep,  fierce  as  the  central  fire  of  the  world ;  Shak- 
speare, wide,  placid,  far-seeing,  as  the  Sun,  the  upper  light  of 
the  world.  Italy  produced  the  one  world-voice  ;  we  English 
had  the  honor  of  producing  the  other. 

Curious  enough  how,  as  it  were  by  mere  accident,  this  man 
came  to  us.  I  think  always,  so  great,  quiet,  complete  and 
self-sufficing  is  this  Shakspeare,  had  the  Warwickshire  Squire 
not  prosecuted  him  for  deer-stealing,  we  had  perhaps  never 
heard  of  him  as  a  Poet !  The  woods  and  skies,  the  rustic 
Life  of  Man  in  Stratford  there,  had  been  enough  for  this 
man !  But  indeed  that  strange  outbudding  of  our  whole 
English  Existence,  which  we  call  the  Elizabethan  Era,  did 
not  it  too  come  as  of  its  own  accord  ?  The  "Tree  Igdrasil " 
buds  and  withers  by  its  own  laws,  —  too  deep  for  our  scan- 
ning. Yet  it  does  bud  and  wither,  and  every  bough  and  leaf 
of  it  is  there,  by  fixed  eternal  laws ;  not  a  Sir  Thomas  Lucy 
but  comes  at  the  hour  fit  for  him.  Curious,  I  say,  and  not 
sufficiently  considered  :  how  every  thing  does  co-operate  with 
all ;  not  a  leaf  rotting  on  the  highway  but  is  indissoluble 
portion  of  solar  and  stellar  systems  ;  no  thought,  word  or  act 
of  man  but  has  sprung  withal  out  of  all  men,  and  works 


114  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

sooner  or  later,  recognizably  or  irrecognizably,  on  all  men ! 
It  is  all  a  Tree:  circulation  of  sap  and  influences,  mutual 
communication  of  every  minutest  leaf  with  the  lowest  talon 
of  a  root,  with  every  other  greatest  and  minutest  portion  of 
the  whole.  The  Tree  Igdrasil,  that  has  its  roots  down  in  the 
Kingdoms  of  Hela  and  Death,  and  whose  boughs  overspread 
the  highest  Heaven  !  — 

In  some  sense  it  may  be  said  that  this  glorious  Elizabethan 
Era  with  its  Shakspeare,  as  the  outcome  and  flowerage  of  all 
which  had  preceded  it,  is  itself  attributable  to  the  Catholicism 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Christian  Faith,  which  was  the 
theme  of  Dante's  Song,  had  produced  this  Practical  Lite 
which  Shakspeare  was  to  sing.  For  Religion  then,  as  it 
now  and  always  is,  was  the  soul  of  Practice  ;  the  primary- 
vital  fact  in  men's  life.  And  remark  here,  as  rather  curi- 
ous, that  Middle-Age  Catholicism  was  abolished,  so  far  as 
Acts  of  Parliament  could  abolish  it,  before  Shakspeare,  the 
noblest  product  of  it,  made  his  appearance.  He  did  make 
his  appearance  nevertheless.  Nature  at  her  own  time,  with 
Catholicism  or  what  else  might  be  necessary,  sent  him  forth ; 
taking  small  thought  of  Acts  of  Parliament.  King-Henrys, 
Queen-Elizabeths,  go  their  way ;  and  Nature  too  goes  hers. 
Acts  of  Parliament,  on  the  whole,  are  small,  notwithstanding 
the  noise  they  make.  What  Act  of  Parliament,  debate  at  St. 
Stephen's,  on  the  hustings  or  elsewhere,  was  it  that  brought 
this  Shakspeare  into  being?  No  dining  at  Freemasons' 
Tavern,  opening  subscription-lists,  selling  of  shares,  and 
infinite  other  jangling  and  true  or  false  endeavoring !  This 
Elizabethan  Era,  and  all  its  nobleness  and  blessedness, 
came  without  proclamation,  preparation,  of  ours.  Price- 
less Shakspeare  was  the  free  gift  of  Nature ;  given  alto- 
gether silently;  —  received  altogether  silently,  as  if  it  had 
been  a  thing  of  little  account.     And  yet,  very  literally,  it 


THE  HERO  AS  POET.  115 

is   a  priceless   thing.      One   should   look  at  that    side    of 
matters  too. 

Of  this  Shakspeare  of  ours,  perhaps  the  opinion  one  some- 
times hears  a  little  idolatrously  expressed  is,  in  fact,  the  right 
one ;  I  think  the  best  judgment  not  of  this  country  only,  but 
of  Europe  at  large,  is  slowly  pointing  to  the  conclusion,  That 
Shakspeare  is  the  chief  of  all  Poets  hitherto ;  the  greatest 
intellect  who,  in  our  recorded  world,  has  left  record  of  him- 
self in  the  way  of  Literature.  On  the  whole,  I  know  not 
such  a  power  of  vision,  such  a  faculty  of  thought,  if  we  take 
all  the  characters  of  It,  in  any  other  man.  Such  a  calmness 
of  depth ;  placid  joyous  strength ;  all  things  imaged  in  that 
great  soul  of  his  so  true  and  clear,  as  in  a  tranquil  unfathom- 
able sea !  It  has  been  said,  that  in  the  constructing  of  Shak- 
speare's  Dramas  there  is,  apart  from  all  other  "  faculties  "  as 
they  are  called,  an  understanding  manifested,  equal  to  that 
in  Bacon's  Novum  Organum.  That  is  true ;  and  it  is  not  a 
truth  that  strikes  every  one.  It  would  become  more  appar- 
ent if  we  tried,  any  of  us  for  himself,  how,  out  of  Shakspeare's 
dramatic  materials,  we  could  fashion  such  a  result !  The 
built  house  seems  all  so  fit,  —  every  way  as  it  should  be,  as 
if  it  came  there  by  its  own  law  and  the  nature  of  things, — 
we  forget  the  rude  disorderly  quarry  it  was  shaped  from. 
The  very  perfection  of  the  house,  as  if  Nature  herself  had 
made  it,  hides  the  builder's  merit.  Perfect,  more  perfect 
than  any  other  man,  we  may  call  Shakspeare  in  this  :  he  dis- 
cerns, knows  as  by  instinct,  what  condition  he  works  under, 
what  his  materials  are,  what  his  own  force  and  its  relation  to 
them  is.  It  is  not  a  transitory  glance  of  insight  that  will  suf- 
fice ;  it  is  deliberate  illumination  of  the  whole  matter;  it  is  a 
calmly  seeing  eye;  a  great  intellect,  in  short.  How  a  man, 
of  some  wide  thing  that  he  has  witnessed,  will  construct  a 
narrative,  what  kind  of  picture  and  delineation  he  will  give 


Il6  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

of  it,  —  is  the  best  measure  you  could  get  of  what  intellect 
is  in  the  man.  Which  circumstance  is  vital  and  shall  stand 
prominent ;  which  unessential,  fit  to  be  suppressed ;  where 
is  the  true  beginning,  the  true  sequence  and  ending  ?  To  find 
out  this,  you  task  the  whole  force  of  insight  that  is  in  the 
man:  He  must  understand the  thing ;  according  to  the  depth 
of  his  understanding,  will  the  fitness  of  his  answer  be.  You 
will  try  him  so.  Does  like  join  itself  to  like  ;  does  the  spirit 
of  method  stir  in  that  confusion,  so  that  its  embroilment  be- 
comes order  ?  Can  the  man  say,  Fiat  lux,  Let  there  be  light ; 
and  out  of  chaos  make  a  world  ?  Precteely  as  there  is  light 
in  himself,  will  he  accomplish  this. 

Or  indeed  we  may  say  again,  it  is  in  what  I  called  Por- 
trait-painting, delineating  of  men  and  things,  especially  of 
men,  that  Shakspeare  is  great.  All  the  greatness  of  the  man 
comes  out  decisively  here.  It  is  unexampled,  I  think,  that 
calm  creative  perspicacity  of  Shakspeare.  The  thing  he  looks 
at  reveals  not  this  or  that  face  of  it,  but  its  inmost  heart,  and 
generic  secret :  it  dissolves  itself  as  in  light  before  him,  so 
that  he  discerns  the  perfect  structure  of  it.  Creative,  we 
said :  poetic  creation,  what  is  this  too  but  seeing  the  thing 
sufficiently  ?  The  word  that  will  describe  the  thing,  follows 
of  itself  from  such  clear  intense  sight  of  the  thing.  And  is 
is  not  Shakspeare's  morality,  his  valor,  candor,  tolerance, 
truthfulness ;  his  whole  victorious  strength  and  greatness, 
which  can  triumph  over  such  obstructions,  visible  there  too  ? 
Great  as  the  world !  No  twisted,  poor  convex-concave  mir- 
ror, reflecting  all  objects  with  its  own  convexities  and  con- 
cavities; a  perfectly  level  mirror ;  —  that  is  to  say  withal,  if 
we  will  understand  it.  a  man  justly  related  to  all  things  and 
men,  a  good  man.  It  is  truly  a  lordly  spectacle  how  this 
great  soul  takes  in  all  kinds  of  men  and  objects,  a  Falstaff, 
an  Othello,  a  Juliet,  a  Coriolanus ;  sets  them  all  forth  to  us 


THE  HERO  AS  POET.  W] 

in  their  round  completeness ;  loving,  just,  the  equal  brother 
of  all.  Novum  Organum,  and  all  the  intellect  you  will  find 
in  Bacon,  is  of  a  quite  secondary  order;  earthy,  material, 
poor,  in  comparison  with  this.  Among  modern  men,  one 
finds,  in  strictness,  almost  nothing  of  the  same  rank.  Goetlfe 
alone,  since  the  days  of  Shakspeare,  reminds  me  of  it.  Of 
him  too  you  say  that  he  saw  the  object ;  you  may  say  what 
he  himself  says  of  Shakspeare :  "  His  characters  are  like 
watches  with  dial-plates  of  transparent  crystal;  they  show 
you  the  hour  like  others,  and  the  inward  mechanism  also  is 
all  visible." 

The  seeing  eye !  It  is  this  that  discloses  the  inner  har- 
mony of  things;  what  Nature  meant,  what  musical  idea 
Nature  has  wrapped  up  in  these  often  rough  embodiments. 
Something  she  did  mean.  To  the  seeing  eye  that  something 
were  discernible.  Are  they  base,  miserable  things?  You 
can  laugh  over  them,  you  can  weep  over  them ;  you  can  in 
some  way  or  other  genially  relate  yourself  to  them  ;  —  you  can, 
at  lowest,  hold  your  peace  about  them,  turn  away  your  own 
and  others'  face  from  them,  till  the  hour  come  for  practically 
exterminating  and  extinguishing  them  !  At  bottom,  it  is  the 
Poet's  first  gift,  as  it  is  all  men's,  that  he  have  intellect 
enough.  He  will  be  a  Poet  if  he  have:  a  Poet  in  word;  or 
failing  that,  perhaps  still  better,  a  Poet  yi  act.  Whether  he 
write  at  all ;  and  if  so,  whether  in  prose  or  in  verse,  will 
depend  on  accidents :  who  knows  on  what  extremely  trivial 
accidents,  —  perhaps  on  his  having  had  a  singing-master,  on 
his  being  taught  to  sing  in  his  boyhood !  But  the  faculty 
which  enables  him  to  discern  the  inner  heart  of  things,  and 
the  harmony  that  dwells  there  (for  whatsoever  exists  has  a 
harmony  in  the  heart  of  it,  or  it  would  not  hold  together  and 
exist),  is  not  the  result  of  habits  or  accidents,  but  the  gift  of 
Nature  herself ;  the  primary  outfit  for  a  Heroic  Man  in  what 


1 18  LECTURES  ON  I/EROES. 

sort  soever.  To  the  Poet,  as  to  every  other,  we  say  first  of 
all,  See.  If  you  cannot  do  that,  it  is  of  no  use  to  keep  string- 
ing rhymes  together,  jingling  sensibilities  against  each  other, 
and  name  yourself  a  Poet;  there  is  no  hope  for  you.  If  you 
can,  there  is,  in  prose  or  verse,  in  action  or  speculation,  all 
manner  of  hope.  The  crabbed  old  Schoolmaster  used  to 
ask,  when  they  brought  him  a  new  pupil,  "  But  are  ye  sure 
he's  not  a  dunce?""  Why,  really  one  might  ask  the  same 
thing,  in  regard  to  every  man  proposed  for  whatsoever  func- 
tion ;  and  consider  it  as  the  one  inquiry  needful :  Are  ye 
sure  he's  not  a  dunce?  There  is,  in  this  world,  no  other 
entirely  fatal  person. 

For,  in  fact,  I  say  the  degree  of  vision  that  dwells  in  a 
man  is  a  correct  measure  of  the  man.  If  called  to  define 
Shakspeare's  faculty,  I  should  say  superiority  of  Intellect, 
and  think  I  had  included  all  under  that.  What  indeed  are 
faculties  ?  We  talk  of  faculties  as  if  they  were  distinct, 
things  separable;  as  if  a  man  had  intellect,  imagination, 
fancy,  etc.,  as  he  has  hands,  feet  and  arms.  That  is  a  capi- 
tal error.  Then  again,  we  hear  of  a  man's  M  intellectual 
nature,"  and  of  his  "  moral  nature,"  as  if  these  again  were 
divisible,  and  existed  apart.  Necessities  of  language  do  per- 
haps prescribe  such  forms  of  utterance ;  we  must  speak,  I 
am  aware,  in  that  way,  if  we  are  to  speak  at  all.  But  words 
ought  not  to  harden  into  things  for  us.  It  seems  to  me,  our 
apprehension  of  this  matter  is,  for  most  part,  radically  falsi- 
fied thereby.  We  ought  to  know  withal,  and  to  keep  forever 
in  mind,  that  these  divisions  are  at  bottom  but  names;  that 
man's  spiritual  nature,  the  vital  Force  which  dwells  in  him, 
is  essentially  one  and  indivisible ;  that  what  we  call  imagina- 
tion, fancy,  understanding,  and  so  forth,  are  but  different 
figures  of  the  same  Power  of  Insight,  all  indissolubly  con- 
nected with  each  other,  physiognomically  related ;  that  if  we 


THE  HERO  AS  POET.  tic) 

knew  one  of  them,  we  might  know  all  of  them.  Morality 
itself,  what  we  call  the  moral  quality  of  a  man,  what  is  this 
but  another  side  of  the  x>ne  vital  Force  whereby  he  is  and 
works?  All  that  a  man  does  is  physiognomical  of  him. 
You  may  see  how  a  man  would  fight,  by  the  way  in  which  he 
sings ;  his  courage,  or  want  of  courage,  is  visible  in  the  word 
he  utters,  in  the  opinion  he  has  formed,  no  less  than  in  the 
stroke  he  strikes.  He  is  one;  and  preaches  the  same  Self 
abroad  in  all  these  ways. 

Without  hands  a  man  might  have  feet,  and  could  still 
walk :  but,  consider  it,  —  without  morality,  intellect  were 
impossible  for  him  ;  a  thoroughly  immoral  man  could  not 
know  any  thing  at  all !  To  know  a  thing,  what  we  can  call 
knowing,  a  man  must  first  love  the  thing,  sympathize  with 
it :  that  is,  be  virtuously  related  to  it.  If  he  have  not  the 
justice  to  put  down  his  own  selfishness  at  every  turn,  the 
courage  to  stand  by  the  dangerous-true  at  every  turn,  how 
shall  he  know  ?  His  virtues,  all  of  them,  will  lie  recorded  in 
his  knowledge.  Nature,  with  her  truth,  remains  to  the  bad, 
to  the  selfish  and  the  pusillanimous  forever  a  sealed  book : 
what  such  can- know  of  Nature  is  mean,  superficial,  small; 
for  the  uses  of  the  day  merely.  —  But  does  not  the  very  Fox 
know  something  of  Nature?  Exactly  so:  it  knows  where 
the  geese  lodge  !  The  human  Reynard,  very  frequent  every- 
where in  the  world,  what  more  does  he  know  but  this  and 
the  like  of  this?  Nay,  it  "should  be  considered  too,  that  if 
the  Fox  had  not  a  certain  vulpine  morality,' he  could  not 
even  know  where  the  geese  were,  or  get  at  the  geese  !  If 
he  spent  his  time  in  splenetic  atrabiliar  reflections  on  his 
own  misery,  his  ill  usage  by  Nature,  Fortune  and  other 
Foxes,  and  so  forth ;  and  had  not  courage,  promptitude, 
practicality,  and  other  suitable  vulpine  gifts  and  graces,  he 
would  catch  no  geese.     We  may  say  of  the  Fox  too,  that  his 


120  LECTURES  OiV  HEROES. 

morality  and  insight  are  of  the  same  dimensions;  different 
faces  of  the  same  internal  unity  of  vulpine  life  !  —  These 
things  are  worth  stating;  for  the  contrary  of  them  acts  with 
manifold  very  baleful  perversion,  in  this  time  :  what  limita- 
tions, modifications  they  require,  your  own  candor  will  supply. 

If  I  say,  therefore,  that  Shakspeare  is  the  greatest  of 
Intellects,  I  have  said  all  concerning  him.  But  there  is 
more  in  Shakspeare's  intellect  than  we  have  yet  seen.  It 
is  what  I  call  an  unconscious  intellect ;  there  is  more  virtue 
in  it  than  he  himself  is  aware  of.  Novalis  beautifully  re- 
marks of  him,  that  those  Dramas  of  his  are  Products  of 
Nature  too,  deep  as  Nature  herself.  I  find  a  great  truth 
in  this  saying.  Shakspeare's  Art  is  not  Artifice  ;  the  noblest 
worth  of  it  is  not  there  by  plan  or  precontrivance.  It  grows 
up  from  the  deeps  of  Nature,  through  this  noble  sincere 
soul,  who  is  a  voice  of  Nature.  The  latest  generations  of 
men  will  find  new  meanings  in  Shakspeare,  new  elucidations 
of  their  own  human  being;  "new  harmonies  with  the  infinite 
structure  of  the  Universe  ;  concurrences  with  later  ideas, 
affinities  with  the  higher  powers  and  senses  of  man.'"  This 
well  deserves  meditating.  It  is  Nature's  highest  reward  to 
a  true  simple  great  soul,  that  he  get  thus  to  be  a  part  of 
herself.  Such  a  man's  works,  whatsoever  he  with  utmost 
conscious  exertion  and  forethought  shall  accomplish,  grow  up 
withal  /^consciously,  from  the  unknown  deeps  in  him  ;  —  as 
the  oak-tree  grows  from  the  Earth's  bosom,  as  the  mountains 
and  waters  shape  themselves ;  with  a  symmetry  grounded  on 
Nature's  own  laws,  conformable  to  all  Truth  whatsoever. 
How  much  in  Shakspeare  lies  hid  ;  his  sorrows,  his  silent 
struggles  known  to  himself;  much  that  was  not  known  at  all, 
not  speakable  at  all :  like  roots,  like  sap  and  forces  working 
underground!     Speech  is  great;  but  Silence  is  greater. 

Withal  the  joyful  tranquillity  of  this  man  is  notable.     I 


THE  HERO   AS  POET.  121 

will  not  blame  Dante  for  his  misery  :  it  is  as  battle  without 
victory;  but  true  battle, —  the  first,  indispensable  thing. 
Yet  I  call  Shakspeare  greater  than  Dante,  in  that  he  fought 
truly,  and  did  conquer.  Doubt  it  not,  he  had  his  own  sor 
rows:  those  Sonnets  of  his  will  even  testify  expressly  in 
what  deep  waters  he  had  waded,  and  swum  struggling  for 
his  life;  —  as  what  man  like  him  ever  failed  to  have  to  do? 
It  seems  to  me  a  heedless  notion,  our  common  one,  that  he 
sat  like  a  bird  on  the  bough ;  and  sang  forth,  free  and  off- 
hand, never  knowing  the  troubles  of  other  men.  Not  so  ; 
with  no  man  is  it  so.  How  could  a  man  travel  forward  from 
rustic  deer-poaching  to  such  tragedy-writing,  and  not  fall  in 
with  sorrows  by  the  way?  Or,  still  better,  how  could  a 
man  delineate  a  Hamlet,  a  Coriolanus,  a  Macbeth,  so  many 
suffering  heroic  hearts,  if  his  own  heroic  heart  had  never 
suffered?  —  And  now,  in  contrast  with  all  this,  observe  his 
mirthfulness,  his  genuine  overflowing  love  of  laughter!  You 
would  say,  in  no  point  does  he  exaggerate  but  only  in  laugh- 
ter. Fiery  objurgations,  words  that  pierce  and  burn,  are  to 
be  found  in  Shakspeare  ;  yet  he  is  always  in  measure  here  ; 
never  what  Johnson  would  remark  as  a  specially  "good 
hater."  But  his  laughter  seems  to  pour  from  him  in  floods; 
he  heaps  all  manner  of  ridiculous  nicknames  on  the  butt  he 
is  bantering,  tumbles  and  tosses  him  in  all  sorts  of  horse- 
play; you  would  say,  with  his  whole  heart  laughs.  And 
then,  if  not  always  the  finest,  it  is  always  a  genial  laughter. 
Not  at  mere  weakness,  at  misery  or  poverty ;  never.  No 
man  who  can  laugh,  what  we  call  laughing,  will  laugh  at 
these  things.  It  is  some  poor  character  only  desiring  to 
laugh,  and  have  the  credit  of  wit,  that  does  so.  Laughter 
means  sympathy;  good  laughter  is  not  "thex  crackling  of 
thorns  under  the  pot."  Even  at  stupidity  and  pretension 
this  Shakspeare  does  not  laugh   otherwise   than  genially. 


122  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Dogberry  and  Verges  tickle  our  very  hearts  ;  and  we  dis- 
miss them  covered  with  explosions  of  laughter :  but  we  like 
the  poor  fellows  only  the  better  for  our  laughing;  and  hope 
they  will  get  on  well  there,  and  continue  Presidents  of  the 
City-watch.  Such  laughter,  like  sunshine  on  the  deep  sea, 
is  very  beautiful  to  me. 

We  have  no  room  to  speak  of  Shakspeare's  individual 
works;  though  perhaps  there  is  much  still  waiting  to  be  said 
on  that  head.  Had  we,  for  instance,  all  his  plays  reviewed 
as  Ha?nlety  in  Wilhelm  Meister,  is !  A  thing  which  might, 
one  day,  be  done.  August  Wilhelm  Schlegel  has  a  remark 
on  his  Historical  Plays,  Henry  Fifth  and  the  others,  which 
is  worth  remembering.  He  calls  them  a  kind  of  National 
Epic.  Marlborough,  you  recollect,  said  he  knew  no  Eng- 
lish History  but  what  he  had  learned  from  Shakspeare. 
There  are  really,  if  we  look  to  it,  few  as  memorable  Histo- 
ries. The  great  salient  points  are  admirably  seized;  all 
rounds  itself  off,  into  a  kind  of  rhythmic  coherence  ;  it  is,  as 
Schlegel  says,  epic;  —  as  indeed  all  delineation  by  a  great 
thinker  will  be.  There  are  right  beautiful  things  in  those 
Pieces,  which  indeed  together  form  one  beautiful  thing.  That 
battle  of  Agincourt  strikes  me  as  one  of  the  most  perfect 
things,  in  its  sort,  we  anywhere  have  of  Shakspeare's.  The 
description  of  the  two  hosts :  the  worn-out,  jaded  English ; 
the  dread  hour,  big  with  destiny,  when  the  battle  shall  begin  ; 
and  then  that  deathless  valor:  "Ye  good  yeomen,  whose 
limbs  were  made  in  England  !  "  There  is  a  noble  Patriotism 
in  it,  —  far  other  than  the  *  indifference  "  you  sometimes 
hear  ascribed  to  Shakspeare.  A  true  English  heart  breathes, 
calm  and  strong,  through  the  whole  business  ;  not  boister- 
ous, protrusive ;  all  the  better  for  that.  There  is  a  sound 
in  it  like  the  ring  of  steel.  This  man  too  had  a  right  stroke 
in  him,  had  it  come  to  that ! 


THE  HERO  AS  POET.  123 

But  I  will  say,  of  Shakspeare's  works  generally,  that  we 
have  no  full  impress  of  him  there ;  even  as  full  as  we  have 
of  many  men.  His  works  are  so  many  windows,  through 
which  we  see  a  glimpse  of  the  world  that  was  in  him.  All 
his  works  seem,  comparatively  speaking,  cursory,  imperfect, 
written  under  cramping  circumstances ,  giving  only  here  and 
there  a  note  of  the  full  utterance  of  the  man.  Passages 
there  are  that  come  upon  you  like  splendor  out  of  Heaven ; 
bursts  of  radiance,  illuminating  the  very  heart  of  the  thing: 
you  say,  "  That  is  true,  spoken  once  and  forever  ;  whereso- 
ever and  whensoever  there  is  an  open  human  soul,  that  will 
be  recognized  as  true  ! '"  Such  bursts,  however,  make  us 
feel  that  the  surrounding  matter  is  not  radiant ;  that  it  is,  in 
part,  temporary,  conventional.  Alas,  Shakspeare  had  to  write 
for  the  Globe  Playhouse :  his  great  soul  had  to  crush  itself, 
as  it  could,  into'that  and  no  other  mould.  It  was  with  him, 
then,  as  it  is  with  us  all.  No  man  works  save  under  condi- 
tions. The  sculptor  cannot  set  his  own  free  Thought  before 
us;  but  his  Thought. as  he  could  translate  it  into  the  stone 
that  was  given,  with  the  tools  that  were  given.  Disjecta 
membra  are  all  that  we  find  of  any  Poet,  or  of  any  man. 

Whoever  looks  intelligently  at  this  Shakspeare  may  recog- 
nize that  he  too  was  a  Prophet,  in  his  way ;  of  an  insight 
analogous  to  the  Prophetic,  though  he  took  it  up  in  another 
strain.  Nature  seemed  to  this  man  also  divine  ;  ««speaka- 
ble,  deep  as  Tophet,  high  as  Heaven  :  "  We  are  such  stuff  as 
Dreams  are  made  of !  "  That  scroll  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
which  few  read  with  understanding,  is  of  the  depth  of  any 
seer.  But  the  man  sang;  did  not  preach,  except  musically. 
We  called  Dante  the  melodious  Priest  of  Middle-Age  Cathol- 
icism. May  we  not  call  Shakspeare  the  still  more  melodious 
Priest  of  a  true  Catholicism,  the  "  Universal  Church  "  of  the 


124  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Future  and  of  all  times  ?  No  narrow  superstition,  harsh 
asceticism,  intolerance,  fanatical  fierceness  or  perversion:  a 
Revelation,  so  far  as  it  goes,  that  such  a  thousandfold  hidden 
beauty  and  divineness  dwells  in  all  Nature ;  which  let  all  men 
worship  as  they  can!  We  may  say  without  offence,  that 
there  rises  a  kind  of  universal  Psalm  out  of  this  Shakspeare 
too;  not  unfit  to  make  itself  heard  among  the  still  more 
sacred  Psalms.  Not  in  disharmony  with  these,  if  we  under- 
stood them,  but  in  harmony  !  —  I  cannot  call  this  Shakspeare 
a  "  Sceptic,"  as  some  do ;  his  indifference  to  the  creeds  and 
theological  quarrels  of  his  time  misleading  them.  No :  nei- 
ther unpatriotic,  though  he  says  little  about  his  Patriotism ; 
nor  sceptic,  though  he  says  little  about  his  Faith.  Such 
•'indifference"  was  the  fruit  of  his  greatness  withal:  his 
whole  heart  was  in  his  own  grand  sphere  of  worship  (we  may 
call  it  such) ;  these  other  controversies,  vitally  important  to 
other  men,  were  not  vital  to  him. 

But  call  it  worship,  call  it  what  you  will,  is  it  not  a  right 
glorious  thing,  and  set  of  things,  this  that  Shakspeare  has 
brought  us  ?  For  myself,  I  feel  that  there  is  actually  a  kind 
of  sacredness  in  the  fact  of  such  a  man  being  sent  into  this 
Earth.  Is  he  not  an  eye  to  us  all;  a  blessed  heaven-sent 
Bringer  of  light?  —  And,  at  bottom,  was  it  not  perhaps  far 
better  that  this  Shakspeare,  every  way  an  unconscious  man, 
was  conscious  of  no  Heavenly  message  ?  He  did  not  feel, 
like  Mahomet,  because  he  saw  into  those  internal  Splendors, 
that  he  specially  was  the  "  Prophet  of  God : "  and  was  he 
not  greater  than  Mahomet  in  that?  Greater;  and  also,  if 
we  compute  strictly,  as  we  did  in  Dante's  case,  more  success- 
ful. It  was  intrinsically  an  error  that  notion  of  Mahomet's, 
of  his  supreme  Prophethood ;  and  has  come  down  to  us  inex- 
tricably involved  in  error  to  this  day ;  dragging  along  with 
it  such  a  coil  of  fables,  impurities,  intolerances,  as  makes  it  a 


THE  HERO   AS  POET.  1 25 

questionable  step  for  me  here  and  now  to  say,  as  I  have  done, 
that  Mahomet  was  a  true  Speaker  at  all,  and  not  rather  an 
ambitious  charlatan,  perversity  and  simulacrum ;  no  Speaker, 
but  a  Babbler !  Even  in  Arabia,  as  I  compute,  Mahomet 
will  have  exhausted  himself  and  become  obsolete,  while  this 
Shakspeare,  this  Dante,  may  still  be  young;  —  while  this 
Shakspeare  may  still  pretend  to  be  a  Priest  of  Mankind,  of 
Arabia  as  of  other  places,  for  unlimited  periods  to  come ! 

Compared  with  any  speaker  or  singer  one  knows,  even 
with  ^Eschylus  or  Homer,  why  should  he  not,  for  veracity 
and  universality,  last  like  them?  He  is  sincere  as  they; 
reaches  deep  down  like  them,  to  the  universal  and  perennial. 
But  as  for  Mahomet,  I  think  it  had  been  better  for  him  not 
to  be  so  conscious !  Alas,  poor  Mahomet ;  all  that  he  was 
conscious  o£  was  a.  mere  error;  a  futility  and  triviality,  —  as 
indeed  such  ever  is.  The  truly  great  in  him  too  was  the 
unconscious :  that  he  was  a  wild  Arab  lion  of  the  desert,  and 
did  speak  out  with  that  great  thunder-voice  of  his,  not  by 
words  which  he  thought  to  be  great,  but  by  actions,  by  feel- 
ings, by  a  history,  which  were  great !  His  Koran  has  become 
a  stupid  piece  of  prolix  absurdity;  we  do  not  believe,  like 
him,  that  God  wrote  that!  The  Great  Man  here  too,  as 
always,  is  a  Force  of  Nature :  whatsoever  is  truly  great  X*\ 
him  springs  up  from  the  /particulate  deeps. 

Well :  this  is  our  poor  Warwickshire  Peasant,  who  rose  to 
be  Manager  of  a  Playhouse,  so  that  he  could  live  without 
begging;  whom  the  Earl  of  Southampton  cast  some  kind 
glances  on ;  whom  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  many  thanks  to  him, 
was  for  sending  to  the  Treadmill !  We  did  not  account  him 
a  god,  like  Odin,  while  he  dwelt  with  us;  —  on  which  point 
there  were  much  to  be  said.  But  I  will  say  rather,  or  repeat : 
In  apite  of  the  sad  state  Hero-worship  now  lies  in?  consider 


126  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

what  this  Shakspeare  has  actually  become  among  us.  Which 
Englishman  we  ever  made,  in  this  land  of  ours,  which  mil- 
lion of  Englishmen,  would  we  not  give  up  rather  than  the 
Stratford  Peasant?  There  is  no  regiment  of  highest  Digni- 
taries that  we  would  sell  him  for.  He  is  the  grandest  thing 
we  have  yet  done.  For  our  honor  among  foreign  nations,  as 
an  ornament  to  our  English  Household,  what  item  is  there 
that  we  would  not  surrender  rather  than  him?  Consider 
now,  if  they  asked  us,  Will  you  give  up  your  Indian  Empire 
or  your  Shakspeare,  you  English ;  never  have  had  any 
Indian  Empire,  or  never  have  had  any  Shakspeare  ?  Really 
it  were  a  grave  question.  Official  persons  would  answer 
doubtless  in  official  language ;  but  we,  for  our  part  too, 
should  not  we  be  forced  to  answer:  Indian  Empire,  or  no 
Indian  Empire;  we  cannot  do  without  Shakspeare  !  Indian 
Empire  will  go,  at  any  rate,  some  day ;  but  this  Shakspeare 
does  not  go,  he  lasts  forever  with  us ;  we  cannot  give  up  our 
Shakspeare ! 

Nay,  apart  from  spiritualities;  and  considering  him  merely 
as  a  real,  marketable,  tangibly-useful  possession.  England, 
before  long,  this  Island  of  ours,  will  hold  but  a  small  frac- 
tion of  the  English  :  in  America,  in  New  Holland,  east  and 
west  to  the  very  Antipodes,  there  will  be  a  Saxondom  cover- 
ing great  spaces  of  the  Globe.  And  now,  what  is  it  that  can 
keep  all  these  together  into  virtually  one  Nation,  so  that 
they  do  not  fall  out  and  fight,  but  live  at  peace,  in  brotherlike 
intercourse,  helping  one  another?  This  is  justly  regarded  as 
the  greatest  practical  problem,  the  thing  all  manner  of  sov- 
ereignties and  governments  are  here  to  accomplish  :  what 
is  it  that  will  accomplish  this  ?  Acts  of  Parliament,  admin- 
istrative prime-ministers,  cannot.  America  is  parted  from 
us,  so  far  as  Parliament  could  part  it.  Call  it  not  fantastic, 
for  there  is  much  reality  in  it :  Here,  I  say,  is  an  English 


THE  HERO  AS  POET.  \2J 

King,  whom  no  time  or  chance,  Parliament  or  combination 
of  Parliaments,  can  dethrone !  This  King  Shakspeare,  does 
not  he  shine,  in  crowned  sovereignty,  over  us  all,  as  the 
noblest,  gentlest,  yet  strongest  of  rally ing-signs ;  z«destruct- 
ible ;  really  more  valuable  in  that  point  of  view  than  any 
other  means  or  appliance  whatsoever  ?  We  can  fancy  him 
as  radiant  aloft  over  all  the  Nations  of  Englishmen,  a 
thousand  years  hence.  From  Paramatta,  from  New  York, 
wheresoever,  under  what  sort  of  Parish-Constable  soever, 
English  men  and  women  are,  they  will  say  to  one  another : 
"  Yes,  this  Shakspeare  is  ours ;  we  produced  him,  we  speak 
and  think  by  him  ;  we  are  of  one  blood  and  kind  with  him." 
The  most  common-sense  politician,  too,  if  he  pleases,  may 
think  of  that. 

Yes,  truly,  it  is  a  great  thing  for  a  Nation  that  it  get  an 
articulate  voice ;  that  it  produce  a  man  who  will  speak  forth 
melodiously  what  the  heart  of  it  means!  Italy,  for  example, 
poor  Italy  lies  dismembered,  scattered  asunder,  not  appear- 
ing in  any  protocol  or  treaty  as  a  unity  at  all ;  yet  the  noble 
Italy  is  actually  one:  Italy  produced  its  Dante;  Italy  can 
speak !  The  Czar  of  all  the  Russias,  he  is  strong,  with  so 
many  bayonets,  Cossacks  and  cannons;  and  does  a  great 
feat  in  keeping  such  a  tract  of  Earth  politically  together ; 
but  he  cannot  yet  speak.  Something  great  in  him,  but  it  is 
a  dumb  greatness.  He  has  had  no  voice  of  genius,  to  be 
heard  of  all  men  and  times.  He  must  learn  to  speak.  He 
is  a  great  dumb  monster  hitherto.  His  cannons  and  Cos- 
sacks will  all  have  rusted  into  nonentity,  while  that  Dante's 
voice  is  still  audible.  The  Nation  that  has  a  Dante  is  bound 
together  as  no  dumb  Russia  can  be.  —  We  must  here  end 
♦vhat  we  had  to  say  of  the  Hero-Poet. 


28  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 


LECTURE  IV. 

THE   HERO   AS   PRIEST.     LUTHER;    REFORMATION;    KNOX; 
PURITANISM. 

[Friday,  13th  May,  1840.] 

OUR  present  discourse  is  to  be  of  the  Great  Man  as 
Priest.  We  have  repeatedly  endeavored  to  explain 
that  all  sorts  of  Heroes  are  intrinsically  of  the  same  ma- 
terial ;  that  given  a  great  soul,  open  to  the  Divine  Signifi- 
cance of  Life,  then  there  is  given  a  man  fit  to  speak  of  this, 
to  sing  of  this,  to  fight  and  work  for  this,  in  a  great,  victori- 
ous, enduring  manner ;  there  is  given  a  Hero,  —  the  outward 
shape  of  whom  will  depend  on  the  time  and  the  environment 
he  finds  himself  in.  The  Priest  too,  as  I  understand  it,  is  a 
kind  of  Prophet ;  in  him  too  there  is  required  to  be  a  light 
of  inspiration,  as  we  must  name  it.  He  presides  over  the 
worship  of  the  people ;  is  the  Uniter  of  them  with  the  Unseen 
Holy.  He  is  the  spiritual  Captain  of  the  people ;  as  the 
Prophet  is  their  spiritual  King  with  many  captains :  he 
guides  them  heavenward,  by  wise  guidance  through  this 
Earth  and  its  work.  The  ideal  of  him  is,  that  he  too  be 
what  we  can  call  a  voice  from  the  unseen  Heaven ;  interpret- 
ing, even  as  the  Prophet  did,  and  in  a  more  familiar  manner 
unfolding  the  same  to  men.  The  unseen  Heaven,  —  the 
"open  secret  of  the  Universe,"  —  which  so  few  have  an  eye 
for!     He  is  the  Prophet  shorn  of  his  more  awful  splendor; 


THB  SPIRITUAL  C.M'TAIN  OF  THE  l'EOl'LE." — Page  128. 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  EAVES T.  1 29 

burning  with  mild  equable  radiance,  as  the  enlightener  of  daily 
life.  This,  I  say,  is  the  ideal  of  a  Priest.  So  in  old  times; 
so  in  these,  and  in  all  times.  One  knows  very  well  that,  in 
reducing  ideals  to  practice,  great  latitude  of  tolerance  is 
needful;  very  great.  But  a  Priest  who  is  not  this  at  all, 
who  does  not  any  longer  aim  or  try  to  be  this,  is  a  character 
—  of  whom  we  had  rather  not  speak  in  this  place. 

Luther  and  Knox  were  by  express  vocation  Priests,  and 
did  faithfully  perform  that  function  in  its  common  sense. 
Yet  it  will  suit  us  better  here  to  consider  them  chiefly  in 
their  historical  character,  rather  as  Reformers  than  Priests. 
There  have  been  other  Priests  perhaps  equally  notable,  in 
calmer  times,  for  doing  faithfully  the  office  of  a  Leader  of 
Worship;  bringing  down,  by  faithful  heroism  in  that  kind, 
a  light  from  Heaven  into  the  daily  life  of  their  people  ;  lead- 
ing them  forward,  as  under  God's  guidance,  in  the  way 
wherein  they  were  to  go.  But  when  this  same  way  was  a 
rough  one,  of  battle,  confusion  and  danger,  the  spiritual 
Captain,  who  led  through  that,  becomes,  especially  to  us  who 
live  under  the  fruit  of  his  leading,  more  notable  than  any 
other.  He  is  the  warfaring  and  battling  Priest;  who  led 
his  people,  not  to  quiet  faithful  labor  as  in  smooth  times, 
but  to  faithful  valorous  conflict,  in  times  all  violent,  dismem- 
bered :  a  more  perilous  service,  and  a  more  memorable  one, 
be  it  higher  or  not.  These  two  men  we  will  account  our 
best  Priests,  inasmuch  as  they  were  our  best  Reformers. 
Nay  I  may  ask,  Is  not  every  true  Reformer,  by  the  nature 
of  him,  a  Priest  first  of  all?  He  appeals  to  Heaven's  invisi- 
ble justice  against  Earth's  visible  force ;  knows  that  it,  the 
invisible,  is  strong  and  alone  strong.  He  is  a  believer  in 
the  divine  truth  of  things ;  a  seer,  seeing  through  the  show 
of  things  ;  a  worshipper,  in  one  way  or  the  other,  of  the 
divine  truth   of  things;   a   Priest,  that   is.     If  he   be   not 


130  LECTURES   ON  HEROES. 

first  a  Priest,  he  will  never  be   good  for  much   as   a   Re- 
former. 

Thus  then,  as  we  have  seen  Great  Men,  in  various  situa- 
tions, building  up  Religions,  heroic  Forms  of  human  Exist- 
ence in  this  world,  Theories  of  Life  worthy  to  be  sung  by  a 
Dante,  Practices  of  Life  by  a  Shakspeare,  —  we  are  now  to 
see  the  reverse  process  ;  which  also  is  necessary,  which  also 
may  be  carried  on  in  the  Heroic  manner.  Curious  how  this 
should  be  necessary:  yet  necessary  it  is.  The  mild  shining 
of  the  Poet's  light  has  to  give  place  to  the  fierce  lightning  of 
the  Reformer :  unfortunately  the  Reformer  too  is  a  person- 
age that  cannot  fail  in  History !  The  Poet  indeed,  with  his 
mildness,  what  is  he  but  the  product  and  ultimate  adjust 
ment  of  Reform,  or  Prophecy,  with  its  fierceness  ?  No  wild 
Saint  Dominies  and  Thebaid  Eremites,  there  had  been  no 
melodious  Dante ;  rough  Practical  Endeavor,  Scandinavian 
and  other,  from  Odin  to  Walter  Raleigh,  from  Ulfila  to 
Cranmer,  enabled  Shakspeare  to  speak.  Nay  the  finished 
Poet,  I  remark  sometimes,  is  a  symptom  that  his  epoch 
itself  has  reached  perfection  and  is  finished;  that  before 
long  there  will  be  a  new  epoch,  new  Reformers  needed. 

Doubtless  it  were  finer,  could  we  go  along  always  in  the 
way  of  music ;  be  tamed  and  taught  by  our  Poets,  as  the 
rude  creatures  were  by  their  Orpheus  of  old.  Or  failing  this 
rhythmic  musical  way,  how  good  were  it  could  we  get  so 
much  as  into  the  equable  way  ;  I  mean,  if  peaceable  Priests, 
reforming  from  day  to  day,  would  always  suffice  us  !  But  it 
is  not  so ;  even  this  latter  has  not  yet  been  realized.  Alas, 
the  battling  Reformer  too  is,  from  time  to  time,  a  needful 
and  inevitable  phenomenon.  Obstructions  are  never  want- 
ing: the  very  things  that  were  once  indispensable  further-/ 
ances  become  obstructions  ;  and  need  to  be  shaken  off,  and 
left  behind  us,  —  a  business    oft§n    of  enormous  difficulty. 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  131 

It  is  notable  enough,  surely,  how  a  Theorem  or  spiritual 
Representation,  so  we  may  call  it,  which  once  took  in  the 
whole  Universe,  and  was  completely  satisfactory  in  all  parts 
of  it  to  the  highly  discursive  acute  intellect  of  Dante,  one  of 
the  greatest  in  the  world,  —  had  in  the  course  of  another 
century  become  dubitable  to  common  intellects ;  become 
deniable  ;  and  is  now,  to  every  one  of  us,  flatly  incredible, 
obsolete  as  Odin's  Theorem  I  To  Dante,  human  Existence, 
and  God's  ways  with  men,  were  all  well  represented  by 
those  Makbolges,  Purgatorios  j  to  Luther  not  well.  How 
was  this  ?  Why  could  not  Dante's  Catholicism  continue  ; 
but  Luther's  Protestantism  must  needs  follow  ?  Alas,  noth- 
ing will  continue. 

I  do  not  make  much  of  "  Progress  of  the  Species,"  as 
handled  in  these  times  of  ours  ;  nor  do  I  think  you  would 
care  to  hear  much  about  it.  The  talk  on  that  subject  is  too 
often  of  the  most  extravagant,  confused  sort.  Yet  I  may 
say,  the  fact  itself  seems  certain  enough  ;  nay  we  can  trace 
out  the  inevitable  necessity  of  it  in  the  nature  of  things. 
Every  man,  as  I  have  stated  somewhere,  is  not  only  ^\ 
learner  but  a  doer:  he  learns  with  the  mind  given  him  what 
has  been  ;  but  with  the  same  mind  he  discovers  farther,  he 
invents  and  devises  somewhat  of  his  own.  Absolutely  with- 
out originality  there  is  no  man.  No  man  whatever  believes, 
or  can  believe,  exactly  what  his  grandfather  believed :  he 
enlarges  somewhat,  by  fresh  discovery,  his  view  of  the 
Universe,  and  consequently  his  Theorem  of  the  Universe, 
—  which  is  an  infinite  Universe,  and  can  never  be  embraced 
wholly  or  finally  by  any  view  or  Theorem,  in  any  conceiva- 
ble enlargement :  he  enlarges  somewhat,  I  say  ;  finds  some- 
what that  was  credible  to  his  grandfather  incredible  to 
him,  false  to  him,  inconsistent  with  some  new  thing  he  has 
discovered  or  observed.     It  is   the   history  of  every  man; 


132  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

and  in  the  history  of  Mankind  we  see  it  summed  up  intc 
great  historical  amounts,  —  revolutions,  new  epochs.  Dante's 
Mountain  of  Purgatory  does  not  stand  "  in  the  ocean  of  the 
other  Hemisphere,"  when  Columbus  has  once  sailed  thither ! 
Men  find  no  such  thing  extant  in  the  other  Hemisphere.  It 
is  not  there.  It  must  cease  to  be  believed  to  be  there.  So 
with  all  beliefs  whatsoever  in  this  world,  —  all  Systems  of 
Belief,  and  Systems  of  Practice  that  spring  from  these. 

If  we  add  now  the  melancholy  fact,  that  when  Belief 
waxes  uncertain,  Practice  too  becomes  unsound,  and  errors, 
injustices  and  miseries  everywhere  more  and  more  prevail, 
we  shall  see  material  enough  for  revolution.  At  all  turns, 
a  man  who  will  do  faithfully,  needs  to  believe  firmly.  If  he 
have  to  ask  at  every  turn  the  world's  suffrage ;  if  he  cannot 
dispense  with  the  world's  suffrage,  and  make  his  own  suf- 
frage serve,  he  is  a  poor  eye-servant;  the  work  committed 
to  him  will  be  misdone.  Every  such  man  is  a  daily  contrib- 
utor to  the  inevitable  downfall.  Whatsoever  work  he  does, 
dishonestly,  with  an  eye  to  the  outward  look  of  it,  is  a 
new  offence,  parent  of  new  misery  to  somebody  or  other. 
Offences  accumulate  till  they  become  insupportable  ;  and 
are  then  violently  burst  through,  cleared  off  as  by  explosion. 
Dante's  sublime  Catholicism,  incredible  now  in  theory,  and 
defaced  still  worse  by  faithless,  doubting  and  dishonest 
practice,  has  to  be  torn  asunder  by  a  Luther ;  Shakspeare's 
noble  Feudalism,  as  beautiful  as  it  once  looked  and  was, 
has  to  end  in  a  French  Revolution.  The  accumulation  of 
offences  is,  as  we  say,  too  literally  exploded,  blasted  asunder 
volcanically ;  and  there  are  long  troublous  periods  before 
matters  come  to  a  settlement  again. 

Surely  it  were  mournful  enough  to  look  only  at  this  face 
of  the  matter,  and  find  in  all  human  opinions  and  arrange- 
ments merely  the  fact  that  they  were  uncertain,,  temporary, 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIES T.  *33 

subject  to  the  law  of  death !  At  bottom,  it  is  not  so :  all 
death,  here  too  we  find,  is  but  of  the  body,  not  of  the  essence 
or  soul ;  all  destruction,  by  violent  revolution  or  howsoever 
it  be,  is  but  new  creation  on  a  wider  scale.  Odinism  was 
Valor j  Christianism  was  Humility,  a  nobler  kind  of  Valor. 
No  thought  that  ever  dwelt  honestly  as  true  in  the  heart  of 
man  but  was  an  honest  insight  into  God's  truth  on  man's 
part,  and  has  an  essential  truth  in  it  which  endures  through 
all  changes,  an  everlasting  possession  for  us  all.  And,  on 
the  other  hand,  what  a  melancholy  notion  is  that,  which  has 
to  represent  all  men,  in  all  countries  and  times  except  our 
own,  as  having  spent  their  life  in  blind  condemnable  error, 
mere  lost  Pagans,  Scandinavians,  Mahometans,  only  that 
we  might  have  the  true  ultimate  knowledge !  All  genera- 
tions of  men  were  lost  and  wrong,  only  that  this  present 
little  section  of  a  generation  might  be  saved  and  right. 
They  all  marched  forward  there,  all  generations  since  the 
beginning  of  the  world,  like  the  Russian  soldiers  into  the 
ditch  of  Schweidnitz  Fort,  only  to  fill  up  the  ditch  with  their 
dead  bodies,  that  we  might  march  over  and  take  the  place ! 
It  is  an  incredible  hypothesis. 

Such  incredible  hypothesis  we  have  seen  maintained  with 
fierce  emphasis  ;  and  this  or  the  other  poor  individual  man, 
with  his  sect  of  individual  men,  marching  as  over  the  dead 
bodies  of  all  men,  towards  sure  victory :  but  when  he  too, 
with  his  hypothesis  and  ultimate  infallible  credo,  sank  into 
the  ditch,  and  became  a  dead  body,  what  was  to  be  said  ?  — 
Withal,  it  is  an  important  fact  in  the  nature  of  man,  that  he 
tends  to  reckon  his  own  insight  as  final,  and  goes  upon  it  as 
such.  He  will  always  do  it,  I  suppose,  in  one  or  the  other 
way;  but  it  must  be  in  some  wider,  wiser  way  than  this.  Are 
not  all  true  men  that  live,  or  that  ever  lived,  soldiers  of  the 
same  army,  enlisted,  under  Heaven's  captaincy,  to  do  battle 


134  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

against  the  same  enemy,  the  empire  of  Darkness  and 
Wrong ?  Why  should  we  misknow  one  another,  fight  not 
against  the  enemy  but  against  ourselves,  from  mere  differ- 
ence of  uniform  ?  All  uniforms  shall  be  good,  so  they  hold 
in  them  true  valiant  men.  All  fashions  of  arms,  the  Arab 
turban  and  swift  cimeter,  Thor's  strong  hammer  smiting 
down  Jotuns,  shall  be  welcome.  Luther's  battle-voice, 
Dante's  march-melody,  all  genuine  things  are  with  us,  not 
against  us.  We  are  all  under  one  Captain,  soldiers  of  the 
same  host.  —  Let  us  now  look  a  little  at  this  Luther's 
fighting;  what  kind  of  battle  it  was,  and  how  he  comported 
himself  in  it.  Luther  too  as  of  our  spiritual  Heroes;  a 
Prophet  to  his  country  and  time. 

As  introductory  to  the  whole,  a  remark  about  Idolatry 
will  perhaps  be  in  place  here.  One  of  Mahomet's  character- 
istics, which  indeed  belongs  to  all  Prophets,  is  unlimited 
implacable  zeal  against  Idolatry.  It  is  the  grand  theme  of 
Prophets:  Idolatry,  the  worshipping  of  dead  Idols  as  the 
Divinity,  is  a  thing  they  cannot  away  with,  but  have  to 
denounce  continually,  and  brand  with  inexpiable  reprobation  ; 
it  is  the  chief  of  all  the  sins  they  see  done  under  the  sun. 
This  is  worth  noting.  We  will  not  enter  here  into  the 
theological  question  about  Idolatry.  Idol  is  Eidolon,  a 
thing  seen,  a  symbol.  It  is  not  God,  but  a  Symbol  of 
God ;  and  perhaps  one  may  question  whether  any  the  most 
benighted  mortal  ever  took  it  for  more  than  a  Symbol.  I 
fancy,  he  did  not  think  that  the  poor  image  his  own  hands 
had  made  was  God ;  but  that  God  was  emblemed  by  it,  that 
God  was  in  it  some  way  or  other.  And  now  in  this  sense, 
one  may  ask,  Is  not  all  worship  whatsoever  a  worship  by 
Symbols,  by  eidola,  or  things  seen  ?  Whether  seen,  rendered 
visible  as  an  image  or  picture  to  the  bodily  eye ;  or  visible 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  1 35 

only  to  the  inward  eye,  to  the  imagination,  to  the  intellect : 
this  makes  a  superficial  but  no  substantial  difference.  It  is 
still  a  Thing  Seen,  significant  of  Godhead ;  an  Idol.  The 
most  rigorous  Puritan  has  his  Confession  of  Faith,  and 
intellectual  Representation  of  Divine  things,  and  worships 
thereby;  thereby  is  worship  first  made  possible  for  him. 
All  creeds,  liturgies,  religious  forms,  conceptions  that  fitlj 
invest  religious  feelings,  are  in  this  sense  eidola,  things  seen. 
All  worship  whatsoever  must  proceed  by  Symbols,  by  Idols: 
—  we  may  say,  all  Idolatry  is  comparative,  and  the  worst 
Idolatry  is  only  more  idolatrous. 

Where,  then,  lies  the  evil  of  it  ?  Some  fatal  evil  must  lie 
in  it,  or  earnest  prophetic  men  would  not  on  all  hands  so 
reprobate  it.  Why  is  Idolatry  so  hateful  to  Prophets  ?  It 
seems  to  me  as  if,  in  the  worship  of  those  poor  wooden 
symbols,  the  thing  that  had  chiefly  provoked  the  Prophet, 
and  filled  his  inmost  soul  with  indignation  and  aversion, 
was  not  exactly  what  suggested  itself  to  his  own  thought, 
and  came  out  of  him  in  words  to  others,  as  the  thing.  The 
rudest  heathen  that  worshipped  Canopus,  or  the  Caabah 
Black-Stone,  he,  as  we  saw,  was  superior  to  the  horse  thai 
worshipped  nothing  at  all !  Nay  there  was  a  kind  of  lasting 
merit  in  that  poor  act  of  his  ;  analogous  to  what  is  still 
meritorious  in  Poets  :  recognition  of  a  certain  endless  divine 
beauty  and  significance  in  stars  and  all  natural  objects  what- 
soever. Why  should  the  Prophet  so  mercilessly  condemn 
him  ?  The  poorest  mortal  worshipping  his  Fetish,  while 
his  heart  is  full  of  it,  may  be  an  object  of  pity,  of  contempt 
and  avoidance,  if  you  will ;  but  cannot  surely  be  an  object 
of  hatred.  Let  his  heart  be  honestly  full  of  it,  the  whole 
space  of  his  dark  narrow  mind  illuminated  thereby ;  in  one 
word,  let  him  entirely  believe  in  his  Fetish,  —  it  will  then  be, 
I  should  say,  if  not  well  with  him,  yet  as  well  as  it  can 


I36  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

readily  be  made  to  be,  and  you  will  leave  him  alone,  unmo 
lested  there. 

But  here  enters  the  fatal  circumstance  of  Idolatry,  that, 
in  the  era  of  the  Prophets,  no  man's  mind  is  any  longer 
honestly  filled  with  his  Idol  or  Symbol.  Before  the  Prophet 
can  arise  who,  seeing  through  it,  knows  it  to  be  mere 
wood,  many  men  must  have  begun  dimly  to  doubt  that  it 
was  little  more.  Condemnable  Idolatry  is  insincere  Idolatry. 
Doubt  has  eaten  out  the  heart  of  it :  a  human  soul  is  seen 
clinging  spasmodically  to  an  Ark  of  the  Covenant,  which  it 
half  feels  now  to  have  become  a  Phantasm.  This  is  one  of 
the  balefulest  sights.  Souls  are  no  longer  filled  with  their 
Fetish ;  but  only  pretend  to  be  filled,  and  would  fain  make 
themselves  feel  that  they  are  filled.  "  You  do  not  believe," 
said  Coleridge;  "you  only  believe  that  you  believe."  It  is 
the  final  scene  in  all  kinds  of  Worship  and  Symbolism  ;  the 
sure  symptom  that  death  is  now  nigh.  It  is  equivalent  to 
what  we  call  Formulism,  and  Worship  of  Formulas,  in  these 
days  of  ours.  No  more  immoral  act  can  be  done  by  a  human 
creature  ;  for  it  is  the  beginning  of  all  immorality,  or  rather 
it  is  the  impossibility  henceforth  of  any  morality  whatsoever : 
the  innermost  moral  soul  is  paralyzed  thereby,  cast  into  fatal 
magnetic  sleep !  Men  are  no  longer  sincere  men.  I  do 
not  wonder  that  the  earnest  man  denounces  this,  brands  it, 
prosecutes  it  with  inextinguishable  aversion.  He  and  it,  all 
good  and  it,  are  at  death-feud.  Blamable  Idolatry  is  Cant, 
and  even  what  one  may  call  Sincere-Cant.  Sincere-Cant: 
that  is  worth  thinking  of !  Every  sort  of  Worship  ends 
with  this  phasis. 

I  find  Luther  to  have  been  a  Breaker  of  Idols,  no  less  than 

any  other  Prophet.     The  wooden  gods  of  the  Koreish,  made 

of  timber  and  beeswax,  were  not  more  hateful  to  Mahomet 

1  an  Tetzel's  Pardons  of  Sin,  made  of  sheepskin  and  ink, 


TlIE  NERO  AS  PRIEST.  1$? 

were  to  Luther.  It  is  the  property  of  every  Hero,  in  every 
time,  in  every  place  and  situation,  that  he  come  back  to 
reality ;  that  he  stand  upon  things,  and  not  shows  of  things. 
According  as  he  loves,  and  venerates,  articulately  or  with 
deep  speechless  thought,  the  awful  realities  of  things,  so 
will  the  hollow  shows  of  things,  however  regular,  decorous, 
accredited  by  Koreishes  or  Conclaves,  be  intolerable  and 
detestable  to  him.  Protestantism  too  is  the  work  of  a 
Prophet:  the  prophet-work  of  that  sixteenth  century.  The 
first  stroke  of  honest  demolition  to  an  ancient  thing  grown 
false  and  idolatrous ;  preparatory  afar  off  to  a  new  thing, 
which  shall  be  true,  and  authentically  divine ! 

At  first  view  it  might  seem  as  if  Protestantism  were 
entirely  destructive  to  this  that  we  call  Hero-worship,  and 
represent  as  the  basis  of  all  possible  good,  religious  or 
social,  for  mankind.  One  often  hears  it  said  that  Protestant- 
ism introduced  a  new  era,  radically  different  from  any  the 
world  had  ever  seen  before  :  the  era  of  "  private  judgment," 
as  they  call  it.  By  this  revolt  against  the  Pope,  every  man 
became  his  own  Pope ;  and  learnt,  among  other  things,  that 
he  must  never  trust  any  Pope,  or  spiritual  Hero-captain,  any 
more  !  Whereby,  is  not  spiritual  union,  all  hierarchy  and 
subordination  among  men,  henceforth  an  impossibility  ?  So 
we  hear  it  said.  —  Now  I  need  not  deny  that  Protestantism 
was  a  revolt  against  spiritual  sovereignties,  Popes  and  much 
else.  Nay  I  will  grant  that  English  Puritanism,  revolt 
against  earthly  sovereignties,  was  the  second  act  of  it;  that 
the  enormous  French  Revolution  itself  was  the  third  act, 
whereby  all  sovereignties  earthly  and  spiritual  were,  as 
might  seem,  abolished  or  made  sure  of  abolition.  Protes- 
tantism is  the  grand  root  from  which  our  whole  subsequent 
European  History  branches  out.  For  the  spiritual  will 
always   body  itself  forth  in   the  temporal   history  of   men; 


13$  LECTURES  CM  HEROES. 

the  spiritual  is  the  beginning  of  the  temporal.  And  now 
sure  enough,  the  cry  is  everywhere  for  Liberty  and  Equality, 
Independence  and  so  forth  ;  instead  of  Kings,  Ballot-boxes 
and  Electoral  suffrages  :  it  seems  made  out  that  any  Hero- 
sovereign,  or  loyal  obedience  of  men  to  a  man,  in  things 
temporal  or  things  spiritual,  has  passed  away  forever  from 
the  world.  I  should  despair  of  the  world  altogether,  if  so. 
One  of  my  deepest  convictions  is,  that  it  is  not  so.  Without 
sovereigns,  true  sovereigns,  temporal  and  spiritual,  I  see 
nothing  possible  but  an  anarchy;  the  hatefulest  of  things. 
But  I  find  Protestantism,  whatever  anarchic  democracy  it  have 
produced,  to  be  the  beginning  of  new  genuine  sovereignty 
and  order.  I  find  it  to  be  a  revolt  against  false  sovereigns  ; 
the  painful  but  indispensable  first  preparative  for  true 
sovereigns  getting  place  among  us  !  .  This  is  worth  explain- 
ing a  little. 

Let  us  remark,  therefore,  in  the  first  place,  that  this  of 
"private  judgment"  is,  at  bottom,  not  a  new  thing  in  the 
world,  but  only  new  at  that  epoch  of  the  world.  There  is 
nothing  generically  new  or  peculiar  in  the  Reformation;  it 
was  a  return  to  Truth  and  Reality  in  opposition  to  Falsehood 
and  Semblance,  as  all  kinds  of  Improvement  and  genuine 
Teaching  are  and  have  been.  Liberty  of  private  judgment, 
if  we  will  consider  it,  must  at  all  times  have  existed  in  the 
world.  Dante  had  not  put  out  his  eyes,  or  tied  shackles  on 
himself:  he  was  at  home  in  that  Catholicism  of  his,  a  free- 
seeing  soul  in  it,  —  if  many  a  poor  Hogstraten,  Tetzel  and 
Dr.  Eck  had  now  become  slaves  in  it.  Liberty  of  judgment  ? 
No  iron  chain,  or  outward  force  of  any  kind,  could  ever  com- 
pel the  soul  of  a  man  to  believe  or  to  disbelieve :  it  is  his 
own  indefeasible  light,  that  judgment  of  his ;  he  will  reign, 
and  believe  there,  by  the  grace  of  God  alone  !  The  sorriest 
sophistical  Bellarmine,  preaching  sightless  faith  and  passive 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  1 3Q 

obedience,  mist  first,  by  some  kind  of  conviction,  have  abdi- 
cated his  right  to  be  convinced.  His  "private  judgment'1 
indicated  that,  as  the  advisablest  step  he  could  take.  The 
right  of  private  judgment  will  subsist,  in  full  force,  wherever 
true  men  subsist.  A  true  man  believes  with  his  whole  judg- 
ment, with  all  the  illumination  and  discernment  that  is  in 
him,  and  has  always  so  believed.  A  false  man,  only  strug- 
ling  to  "  believe  that  he  believes,"  will  naturally  manage  it 
in  some  other  way.  Protestantism  said  to  this  latter,  Woe  ! 
and  to  the  former,  Well  done !  At  bottom,  it  was  no  new 
saying;  it  was  a  return  to  all  old  sayings  that  ever  had  been 
said.  Be  genuine,  be  sincere :  that  was,  once  more,  the 
meaning  of  it.  Mahomet  believed  with  his  whole  mind ; 
Odin  with  his  whole  mind,  —  he,  and  all  true  Followers  of 
Odinism.  They,  by  their  private  judgment,  had  "judged" 
—  so. 

And  now  I  venture  to  assert,  that  the  exercise  of  private 
judgment,  faithfully  gone  about,  does  by  no  means  neces- 
sarily end  in  selfish  independence,  isolation ;  but  rather  ends 
necessarily  in  the  opposite  of  that.  It  is  not  honest  inquiry 
that  makes  anarchy;  but  it  is  error,  insincerity,  half-belief 
and  untruth  that  make  it.  A  man  protesting  against  error 
is  on  the  way  towards  uniting  himself  with  all  men  that 
believe  in  truth.  There  is  no  communion  possible  among 
men  who  believe  only  in  hearsays.  The  heart  of  each  is 
lying  dead;  has  no  power  of  sympathy. even  with  things, — 
or  he  would  believe  them  and  not  hearsays.  No  sympathy 
even  with  things  ;  how  much  less  with  his  fellow-men  !  He 
cannot  unite  with  men ;  he  is  an  anarchic  man.  Only  in  a 
world  of  sincere  men  is  unity  possible ;  —  and  there,  in  the 
long  run,  it  is  as  good  as  certain. 

For  observe  one  thing,  a  thing  too  often  left  out  of  view, 
oi  rather  altogether  lost  sight  of,  in  this  controversy :  That 


140  LECTURES  ON  HEROES-. 

it  is  not  necessary  a  man  should  himself  have  discovered  the 
truth  he  is  to  believe  in,  and  never  so  sincerely  to  believe  in. 
A  Great  Man,  we  said,  was  always  sincere,  as  the  first  con- 
dition of  him.  But  a  man  need  not  be  great  in  order  to  be 
sincere;  that  is  not  the  necessity  of  Nature  and  all  Time, 
but  only  of  certain  corrupt  unfortunate  epochs  of  Time.  A 
man  can  believe,  and  make  his  own,  in  the  most  genuine 
way,  what  he  has  received  from  another ;  —  and  with  bound- 
less gratitude  to  that  other !  The  merit  of  originality  is  not 
novelty ;  it  is  sincerity.  The  believing  man  is  the  original 
man :  whatsoever  he  believes,  he  believes  it  for  himself,  not 
for  another.  Every  son  of  Adam  can  become  a  sincere  man, 
an  original  man,  in  this  sense ;  no  mortal  is  doomed  to  be 
an  insincere  man.  Whole  ages,  what  we  call  ages  of  Faith, 
are  original ;  all  men  in  them,  or  the  most  of  men  in  them, 
sincere.  These  are  the  great  and  fruitful  ages :  every 
worker,  in  all  spheres,  is  a  worker  not  on  semblance  but  on 
substance ;  every  work  issues  in  a  result :  the  general  sum 
of  such  work  is  great ;  for  all  of  it,  as  genuine,  tends  towards 
one  goal ;  all  of  it  is  additive,  none  of  it  subtractive.  There 
is  true  union,  true  kingship,  loyalty,  all  true  and  blessed 
things,  so  far  as  the  poor  Earth  can  produce  blessedness  for 
men. 

Hero-worship?  Ah  me,  that  a  man  be  self-subsistent, 
original,  true,  or  what  we  call  it,  is  surely  the  farthest  in  the 
world  from  indisposing  him  to  reverence  and  believe  other 
men's  truth !  It  only  disposes,  necessitates  and  invincibly 
compels  him  to  ^believe  other  men's  dead  formulas,  hear- 
says and  untruths.  A  man  embraces  truth  with  his  eyes 
open,  and  because  his  eyes  are  open :  does  he  need  to  shut 
them  before  he  can  love  his  Teacher  of  truth  ?  He  alone 
can  love,  with  a  right  gratitude  and  genuine  loyalty  of  soul, 
the  Hero-Teacher  who  has  delivered  him  out  of  darkness 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  I4I 

into  light.  Is  not  such  a  one  a  true  Hero  and  Serpent- 
queller :  worthy  of  all  reverence  !  The  black  monster,  False- 
hood, our  one  enemy  in  this  world,  lies  prostrate  by  his 
valor;  it  was  he  that  conquered  the  world  for  us!  —  See, 
accordingly,  was  not  Luther  himself  reverenced  as  a  true 
Pope,  or  Spiritual  Father,  being  verily  such  ?  Napoleon, 
from  amid  boundless  revolt  of  Sansculottism,  became  a 
King.  Hero-worship  never  dies,  nor  can  die.  Loyalty  and 
Sovereignty  are  everlasting  in  the  world:  —  and  there  is 
this  in  them,  that  they  are  grounded  not  on  garnitures  and 
semblances,  but  on  realities  and  sincerities.  Not  by  shutting 
your  eyes,  your  "  private  judgment ; "  no,  but  by  opening 
them,  and  by  having  something  to  see  !  Luther's  message 
was  deposition  and  abolition  to  all  false  Popes  and  Poten- 
tates, but  life  and  strength,  though  afar  off,  to  new  genuine 
ones. 

All  this  of  Liberty  and  Equality,  Electoral  suffrages, 
Independence  and  so  forth,  we  will  take,  therefore,  to  be  a 
temporary  phenomenon,  by  no  means  a  final  one.  Though 
likely  to  last  a  long  time,  with  sad  enough  embroilments  for 
us  all,  we  must  welcome  it,  as  the  penalty  of  sins  that  are 
past,  the  pledge  of  inestimable  benefits  that  are  coming. 
In  all  ways,  it  behoved  men  to  quit  simulacra  and  return  to 
fact;  cost  what  it  might,  that  did  behove  to  be  done.  With 
spurious  Popes,  and  Believers  having  no  private  judgment, 
—  quacks  pretending  to  command  over  dupes,  —  what  can 
you  do  ?  Misery  and  mischief  only.  You  cannot  make  an 
association  out  of  insincere  men  ;  you  cannot  build  an  edifice 
except  by  plummet  and  level,  at  rignS-ang\es  to  one  another ! 
In  all  this  wild  revolutionary  work,  from  Protestantism  down- 
wards, I  see  the  blessedest  result  preparing  itself :  not  abo- 
lition of  Hero-worship,  but  rather  what  I  would  call  a  whole 
World  of  Heroes.     If  Hero  mean  sincere  man,  why  may  not 


I42  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

every  one  of  us  be  a  Hero  ?  A  world  all  sincere,  a  believ 
mg  world :  the  like  has  been  ;  the  like  will  again  be,  — 
cannot  help  being.  That  were  the  right  sort  of  Worshippers 
for  Heroes :  never  could  the  truly  Better  be  so  reverenced 
as  where  all  were  True  and  Good  !  —  But  we  must  hasten  to 
Luther  and  his  Life. 

Luther's  birthplace  was  Eisleben  in  Saxony  ;  he  came  into 
the  world  there  on  the  10th  of  November,  1483.  It  was  an 
accident  that  gave  this  honor  to  Eisleben.  His  parents,  poor 
mine-laborers  in  a  village  of  that  region,  named  Mohra,  had 
gone  to  the  Eisleben  Winter-Fair;  in  the  tumult  of  this  scene 
the  Frau  Luther  was  taken  with  travail,  found  refuge  in 
some  poor  house  there,  and  the  boy  she  bore  was  named 
Martin  Luther.  Strange  enough  to  reflect  upon  it.  This 
poor  Frau  Luther,  she  had  gone  with  her  husband  to  make 
her  small  merchandisings  ;  perhaps  to  sell  the  lock  of  yarn 
she  had  been  spinning,  to  buy  the  small  winter-necessaries 
for  her  narrow  hut  or  household ;  in  the  whole  world,  that 
day,  there  was  not  a  more  entirely  unimportant-looking  pair 
of  people  than  this  Miner  and  his  Wife.  And  yet  what 
were  all  Emperors,  Popes  and  Potentates,  in  comparison? 
There  was  born  here,  once  more,  a  Mighty  Man;  whose 
light  was  to  flame  as  the  beacon  over  long  centuries  and 
epochs  of  the  world;  the  whole  world  and  its  history  was 
waiting  for  this  man.  It  is  strange,  it  is  great.  It  leads  us 
back  to  another  Birth-hour,  in  a  still  meaner  environment, 
Eighteen  Hundred  years  ago,  — of  which  it  is  fit  that  we 
say  nothing,  that  we  think  only  in  silence  ;  for  what  words 
are  there  !  The  Age  of  Miracles  past  ?  The  Age  of  Mira- 
cles is  forever  here  ! 

I  find  it   altogether  suitable  to  Luther's  function  in  this 
Earth,   and   doubtless  wisely  ordered  to  that  end   by  the 


KTIN  LUTHER." — Page  142. 


LIBRARY 
OF  THE   . 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  1 43 

Providence  presiding  over  him  and  us  and  all  things,  that 
he  was  born  poor,  and  brought  up  poor,  one  of  the  poorest 
of  men.  He  had  to  beg,  as  the  school-children  in  those 
times  did;  singing  for  alms  and  bread,  from  door  to  door. 
Hardship,  rigorous  Necessity,  was  the  poor  boy's  companion  ; 
no  man  nor  no  thing  would  put  on  a  false  face  to  flatter 
Martin  Luther.  Among  things,  not  among  the  shows  of 
things,  had  he  to  grow.  A  boy  of  rude  figure,  yet  with 
weak  health,  with  his  large  greedy  soul,  full  of  all  faculty 
and  sensibility,  he  suffered  greatly.  But  it  was  his  task  to 
get  acquainted  with  realities,  and  keep  acquainted  with  them, 
at  whatever  cost:  his  task  was  to  bring  the  whole  world 
back  to  reality,  for  it  had  dwelt  too  long  with  semblance  !  A 
youth  nursed  up  in  wintry  whirlwinds,  in  desolate  darkness 
and  difficulty,  that  he  may  step  forth  at  last  from  his  stormy 
Scandinavia,  strong  as  a  true  man,  as  a  god  :  a  Christian 
Odin, — aright  Thor  once  more,  with  his  thunder-hammer, 
to  smite  asunder  ugly  enough  Joluns  and  Giant-monsters  ! 

Perhaps  the  turning  incident  of  his  life,  we  may  fancy, 
was  that  death  of  his  friend  Alexis,  by  lightning,  at  the  gate 
of  Erfurt.  Luther  had  struggled  up  through  boyhood,  better 
and  worse  ;  displaying,  in  spite  of  all  hindrances,  the  largest 
intellect,  eager  to  learn:  his  father  judging  doubtless  that 
he  might  promote  himself  in  the  world,  set  him  upon  the 
study  of  Law.  This  was  the  path  to  rise ;  Luther,  with 
little  will  in  it  either  way,  had  consented :  he  was  now  nine- 
teen years  of  age.  Alexis  and  he  had  been  to  see  the  old 
Luther  people  at  Mansfeldt ;  were  got  back  again  near 
Erfurt,  when  a  thunderstorm  came  on ;  the  bolt  struck 
Alexis,  he  fell  dead  at  Luther's  feet.  What  is  this  Life  of 
ours?  —  gone  in  a  moment,  burnt  up  like  a  scroll,  into  the 
blank  Eternity  !  What  are  all  earthly  preferments,  Chan- 
cellorships,  Kingships?     They  lie  shrunk  together — there  J 


144  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

The  Earth  has  opened  on  them ;  in  a  moment  they  are  not 
and  Eternity  is.  Luther,  struck  to  the  heart,  determined  to 
devote  himself  to  God  and  God's  service  alone.  In  spite 
of  all  dissuasions  from  his  father  and  others,  he  became  a 
Monk  in  the  Augustine  Convent  at  Erfurt. 

This  was  probably  the  first  light-point  in  the  history  of 
Luther,  his  purer  will  now  first  decisively  uttering  itself; 
but,  for  the  present,  it  was  still  as  one  light-point  in  an 
element  all  of  darkness.  He  says  he  was  a  pious  monk, 
ich  bin  ei?i  frommer  Aid  nek  gewesen ;  faithfully,  painfully 
struggling  to  work  out  the  truth  of  this  high  act  of  his;  but 
it  was  to  little  purpose.  His  misery  had  not  lessened ;  had 
rather,  as  it  were,  increased  into  infinitude.  The  drudgeries 
he  had  to  do,  as  novice  in  his  Convent,  all  sorts  of  slave- 
work,  were  not  his  grievance  :  the  deep  earnest  soul  of  the 
man  had  fallen  into  all  manner  of  black  scruples,  dubita- 
tions ;  he  believed  himself  likely  to  die  soon,  and  far  worse 
than  die.  One  hears  with  a  new  interest  for  poor  Luther 
that,  at  this  time,  he  lived  in  terror  of  the  unspeakable 
misery ;  fancied  that  he  was  doomed  to  eternal  reprobation. 
Was  it  not  the  humble  sincere  nature  of  the  man  ?  What 
was  he,  that  he  should  be  raised  to  Heaven  !  He  that  had 
known  only  misery,  and  mean  slavery :  the  news  was  too 
blessed  to  be  credible.  It  could  not  become  clear  to  him 
how,  by  fasts,  vigils,  formalities  and  mass-work,  a  man's 
soul  could  be  saved.  He  fell  into  the  blackest  wretched- 
ness ;  had  to  wander  staggering  as  on  the  verge  of  bottom- 
less Despair. 

It  must  have  been  a  most  blessed  discovery,  that  of  an 
old  Latin  Bible  which  he  found  in  the  Erfurt  Library  about 
this  time.  He  had  never  seen  the  Book  before.  It  taught 
him  another  lesson  than  that  of  fasts  and  vigils.  A  brother 
monk  too;  of  pious  experience,  was  helpful.     Luther  learned. 


THE   HERO   AS  PRIEST.  1 45 

now  that  a  man  was  saved  not  by  singing  masses,  but  by 
the  infinite  grace  of  God :  a  more  credible  hypothesis.  He 
gradually  got  himself  founded,  as  on  the  rock.  No  wonder 
he  should  venerate  the  Bible,  which  had  brought  this  blessed 
help  to  him.  He  prized  it  as  the  Word  of  the  Highest  must 
be  prized  by  such  a  man.  He  determined  to  hold  by  that; 
as  through  life  and  to  death  he  firmly  did. 

This,  then,  is  his  deliverance  from  darkness,  his  final 
triumph  over  darkness,  what  we  call  his  conversion  ;  for 
himself  the  most  important  of  all  epochs.  That  he  should 
now  grow  daily  in  peace  and  clearness  ;  that,  unfolding  now 
the  great  talents  and  virtues  implanted  in  him,  he  should 
rise  to  importance  injiis  Convent,  in  his  country,  and  be 
found  more  and  more  useful  in  all  honest  business  of  life, 
is  a  natural  result.  He  was  sent  on  missions  by  his  Augus- 
tine Order,  as  a  man  of  talent  and  fidelity  fit  to  do  their 
business  well :  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  Friedrich,  named  the 
Wise,  a  truly  wise  and  just  prince,  had  cast  his  eye  on  him 
as  a  valuable  person ;  made  him  Professor  in  his  new 
University  of  Wittenberg,  Preacher  too  at  Wittenberg;  in 
both  which  capacities,  as  in  all  duties  he  did,  this  Luther, 
in  the  peaceable  sphere  of  common  life,  was  gaining  more 
and  more  esteem  with  all  good  men. 

It  was  in  his  twenty-seventh  year  that  he  first  saw  Rome ; 
being  sent  thither,  as  I  said,  on  mission  from  his  Convent. 
Pope  Julius  the  Second,  and  what  was  going  on  at  Rome, 
must  have  filled  the  mind  of  Luther  with  amazement.  He 
had  come  as  to  the  Sacred  City,  throne  of  God's  High- 
priest  on  Earth;  and  he  found  it  —  what  we  know  !  Many 
thoughts  it  must  have  given  the  man ;  many  which  we  have 
no  record  of,  which  perhaps  he  did  not  himself  know  how 
to  utter.  This  Rome,  this  scene  of  false  priests,  clothed 
not  in  the  beauty  of  holiness,  but  in  far  other  vesture,  is 


I46  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

false.  :  but  what  is  it  to  Luther  ?  A  mean  man  he,  how  shall 
he  reform  a  world?  That  was  far  from  his  thoughts.  A 
humble,  solitary  man,  why  should  he  at  all  meddle  with  the 
world  ?  It  was  the  task  of  quite  higher  men  than  he.  His 
business  was  to  guide  his  own  footsteps  wisely  through 
the  world.  Let  him  do  his  own  obscure  duty  in  it  well ;  the 
rest,  horrible  and  dismal  as  it  looks,  is  in  God's  hand,  not 
in  his. 

It  is  curious  to  reflect  what  might  have  been  the  issue, 
had  Roman  Popery  happened  to  pass  this  Luther  by  ;  to  go 
on  in  its  great  wasteful  orbit,  and  not  come  athwart  his  little 
path,  and  force  him  to  assault  it !  Conceivable  enough  that, 
in  this  case,  he  might  have  held  his  peace  about  the  abuses 
of  Rome ;  left  Providence,  and  God  on  high,  to  deal  with 
them  !  A  modest  quiet  man  ;  not  prompt  he  to  attack  irrev- 
erently persons  in  authority.  His  clear  task,  as  I  say,  was 
to  do  his  own  duty;  to  walk  wisely  in  this  world  of  con- 
fused wickedness,  and  save  his  own  soul  alive.  But  the 
Roman  Highpriesthood  did  come  athwart  him  :  afar  off  at 
Wittenberg  he,  Luther,  could  not  get  lived  in  honesty  for  it ; 
he  remonstrated,  resisted,  came  to  extremity ;  was  struck  at, 
struck  again,  and  so  it  came  to  wager  of  battle  between 
them !  This  is  worth  attending  to  in  Luther's  history. 
Perhaps  no  man  of  so  humble,  peaceable  a  disposition  ever 
filled  the  world  with  contention.  We  cannot  but  see  that 
he  would  have  loved  privacy,  quiet  diligence  in  the  shade ; 
that  it  was  against  his  will  he  ever  became  a  notoriety. 
Notoriety  :  what  would  that  do  for  him  ?  The  goal  of  his 
march  through  this  world  was  the  Infinite  Heaven ;  an 
indubitable  goal  for  him  :  in  a  few  years,  he  should  either 
have  attained  that,  or  lost  it  forever !  We  will  say  nothing 
at  all,  I  think,  of  that  sorrowfulest  of  theories,  of  its  being 
some   mean  shopkeeper  grudge,   of   the    Augustine   Monk 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  1 47 

against  the  Dominican,  that  first  kindled  the  wrath  of  Luther, 
and  produced  the  Protestant  Reformation.  We  will  say  to 
ihe  people  who  maintain  it,  if  indeed  any  such  exist  now : 
Jet  first  into  the  Sphere  of  thought  by  which  it  is  so  much 
as  possible  to  judge  of  Luther,  or  of  any  man  like  Luther, 
otherwise  than  distractedly;  we  may  then  begin  arguing 
with  you. 

The  Monk  Tetzel,  sent  out  carelessly  in  the  way  of  trade, 
by  Leo  Tenth,  —  who  merely  wanted  to  raise  a  little  money, 
and  for  the  rest  seems  to  have  been  a  Pagan  rather  than  a 
Christian,  so  far  as  he  was  any  thing,  —  arrived  at  Witten- 
berg, and  drove  his  scandalous  trade  there.  Luther's  flock 
bought  Indulgences ;  in  the  confessional  of  his  Church, 
people  pleaded  to  him  that  they  had  already  got  their  sins 
pardoned.  Luther,  if  he  would  not  be  found  wanting  at  his 
own  post,  a  false  sluggard  and  coward  at  the  very  centre  of 
the  little  space  of  ground  that  was  his  own  and  no  other 
man's,  had  to  step  forth  against  Indulgences,  and  declare 
aloud  that  they  were  a  futility  and  sorrowful  mockery,  that 
no  man's  sins  could  be  pardoned  by  them.  It  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  whole  Reformation.  We  know  how  it  went ; 
forward  from  this  first  public  challenge  of  Tetzel,  on  the  last 
day  of  October,  151 7,  through  remonstrance  and  argument; 
—  spreading  ever  wider,  rising  ever  higher;  till  it  became 
unquenchable,  and  enveloped  all  the  world.  Luther's  heart's- 
desire  was  to  have  this  grief  and  other  griefs  amended ;  his 
thought  was  still  far  other  than  that  of  introducing  separa- 
tion in  the  Church,  or  revolting  against  the  Pope,  Father  of 
Christendom.  —  The  elegant  Pagan  Pope  cared  little  about 
this  Monk  and  his  doctrines  ;  wished,  however,  to  have  done 
with  the  noise  of  him  :  in  a  space  of  some  three  years, 
having  tried  various  softer  methods,  he  thought  good  to  end 
it  byjire.    He  dooms  the  Monk's  writings  to  be  burnt  by  the 


I48  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

hangman,  and  his  body  to  be  sent  bound  to  Rome,  —  proba- 
bly for  a  similar  purpose.  It  was  the  way  they  had  ended 
with  Huss,  with  Jerome,  the  century  before.  A  short  argu- 
ment, fire.  Poor  Huss  :  he  came  to  that  Constance  Council, 
with  all  imaginable  promises  and  safe-conducts  5  an  earnest, 
not  rebellious  kind  of  man  :  they  laid  him  instantly  in  a 
stone  dungeon  "  three  feet  wide,  six  feet  high,  seven  feet 
long;"  burnt  the  true  voice  of  him  out  of  this  world-, 
choked  it  in  smoke  and  fire.     That  was  not  well  done  ! 

I,  for  one,  pardon  Luther  for  now  altogether  revolting 
against  the  Pope.  The  elegant  Pagan,  by  this  fire-decree  of 
his,  had  kindled  into  noble  just  wrath  the  bravest  heart  then 
living  in  this  world.  The  bravest,  if  also  one  of  the  hum- 
blest, peaceablest;  it  was  now  kindled.  These  words  of 
mine,  words  of  truth  and  soberness,  aiming  faithfully,  as 
human  inability  would  allow,  to  promote  God's  truth  on 
Earth,  and  save  men's  souls,  you,  God's  vicegerent  on  earth, 
answer  them  by  the  hangman  and  fire  ?  You  will  burn  me 
and  them,  for  answer  to  the  God's-message  they  strove  to 
bring  you  ?  You  are  not  God's  vicegerent ;  you  are  another's 
than  his,  I  think !  I  take  your  Bull,  as  an  emparchmented 
Lie,  and  burn  it.  You  will  do  what  you  see  good  next:  this 
is  what  I  do.  —  It  was  on  the  10th  of  December,  1520,  three 
years  after  the  beginning  of  the  business,  that  Luther,  "with 
a  great  concourse  of  people,"  took  this  indignant  step  of 
burning  the  Pope's  fire-decree  "  at  the  Elster-Gate  of  Witten- 
berg." Wittenberg  looked  on  "  with  shoutings ;  "  the  whole 
world  was  looking  on.  The  Pope  should  not  have  provoked 
that  "  shout "  !  It  was  the  shout  of  the  awakening  of  nations. 
The  quiet  German  heart,  modest,  patient  of  much,  had  at 
length  got  more  than  it  could  bear.  Formulism,  Pagan 
Popeism,  and  other  Falsehood  and  corrupt  Semblance  had 
ruled  long  enough :  and  here  once  more  was  a  man  found 


"I  TAKE  YOUR  BULL  AS  AN    EMPARCHMENTED  LIE,   AND  BURN  \T.V—Page 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  149 

who  durst  tell  all  men  that  God's  world  stood  not  on  sem- 
blances but  on  realities;  that  Life  was  a  truth,  and  not 
a  lie ! 

At  bottom,  as  was  said  above,  we  are  to  consider  Luther 
as  a  Prophet  Idol-breaker;  a  bringer-back  of  men  to  reality. 
It  is  the  function  of  great  men  and  teachers.  Mahomet  said, 
These  idols  of  yours  are  wood ;  you  put  wax  and  oil  on  them, 
the  flies  stick  on  them :  they  are  not  God,  I  tell  you,  they  are 
black  wood !  Luther  said  to  the  Pope,  This  thing  of  yours 
that  you  call  a  Pardon  of  Sins,  it  is  a  bit  of  rag-paper  with 
ink.  It  is  nothing  else;  it,  and  so  much  like  it,  is  nothing 
elsr.  God  alone  can  pardon  sins.  Popeship,  spiritual  Father- 
hood of  God's  Church,  is  that  a  vain  semblance,  of  cloth  and 
parchment?  It  is  an  awful  fact.  God's  Church  is  not  a 
semblance,  Heaven  and  Hell  are  not  semblances.  I  stand 
on  this,  since  you  drive  me  to  it.  Standing  on  this,  I  a  poor 
German  Monk  am  stronger  than  you  all.  I  stand  solitary, 
friendless,  but  on  God's  Truth ;  you  with  your  tiaras,  triple- 
hats,  with  your  treasuries  and  armories,  thunders  spiritual 
and  temporal,  stand  on  the  Devil's  Lie,  and  are  not  so 
strong !  — 

The  Diet  of  Worms,  Luther's  appearance  there  on  the 
17th  of  April,  1 521,  may  be  considered  as  the  greatest  scene 
in  Modern  European  History;  the  point,  indeed,  from  which 
the  whole  subsequent  history  of  civilization  takes  its  rise. 
After  multiplied  negotiations,  disputations,  it  had  come  to 
this.  The  young  Emperor  Charles  Fifth,  with  all  the  Princes 
of  Germany,  Papal  nuncios,  dignitaries  spiritual  and  tempo- 
ral, are  assembled  there :  Luther  is  to  appear  and  answer  for 
himself,  whether  he  will  recant  or  not.  The  world's  pomp 
and  power  sits  there  on  this  hand :  on  that,  stands  up  for 
God's  Truth,  one  man,  the  poor  miner  Hans  Luther's  Son. 
Friends  had  reminded  him  of  Huss,  advised  him  not  to  go,* 


ISO  LECTURES  OAT  HEROES. 

he  would  not  be  advised.  A  large  company  of  friends  rode 
out  to  meet  him,  with  still  more  earnest  warnings ;  he  an- 
swered, "  Were  there  as  many  Devils  in  Worms  as  there  are 
roof-tiles,  I  would  on."  The  people,  on  the  morrow,  as  he 
went  to  the  Hall  of  the  Diet,  crowded  the  windows  and 
housetops,  some  of  them  calling  out  to  him,  in  solemn  words, 
not  to  recant :  "  Whosoever  denieth  me  before  men  !  "  they 
cried  to  him,  —  as  in  a  kind  of  solemn  petition  and  adjuration. 
Was  it  not  in  reality  our  petition  too,  the  petition  of  the 
whole  world,  lying  in  dark  bondage  of  soul,  paralyzed  under 
a  black  spectral  Nightmare  and  triple-hatted  Chimera,  calling 
itself  Father  in  God,  and  what  not :  "  Free  us ;  it  rests  with 
thee ;  desert  us  not !  " 

Luther  did  not  desert  us.  His  speech,  of  two  hours,  dis- 
tinguished itself  by  its  respectful,  wise  and  honest  tone  ;  sub- 
missive to  whatsoever  could  lawfully  claim  submission,  not 
submissive  to  any  more  than  that.  His  writings,  he  said, 
were  partly  his  own,  partly  derived  from  the  Word  of  God. 
As  to  what  was  his  own,  human  infirmity  entered  into  it; 
unguarded  anger,  blindness,  many  things  doubtless  which  it 
were  a  blessing  for  him  could  he  abolish  altogether.  But  as 
to  what  stood  on  sound  truth  and  the  Word  of  God,  he  could 
not  recant  it.  How  could  he  ?  "  Confute  me,"  he  concluded, 
"  by  proofs  of  Scripture,  o'r  else  by  plain  just  arguments :  I 
cannot  recant  otherwise.  For  it  is  neither  safe  nor  prudent 
to  do  aught  against  conscience.  Here  stand  I ;  I  can  do 
no  other:  God  assist  me!" —  It  is,  as  we  say,  the  greatest 
moment  in  the  Modern  History  of  Men.  English  Puritanism, 
England  and  its  Parliaments,  Americas,  and  vast  work  these 
two  centuries;  French  Revolution,  Europe  and  its  work 
everywhere  at  present:  the  germ  of  it  all  lay  there:  had 
Luther  in  that  moment  done  other,  it  had  all  been  other- 
Vise  !     The  European  World  was  asking  him  ;  Am  I  to  sink 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  1 5  t 

ever  lower  into  falsehood,  stagnant  putrescence,  loathsome 
accursed  death ;  or,  with  whatever  paroxysm,  to  cast  the 
falsehoods  out  of  me,  and  be  cured  and  live  ?  — 

Great  wars,  contentions  and  disunion  followed  out  of  this 
Reformation;  which  last  down  to  our  day,  and  are  yet  far 
from  ended.  Great  talk  and  crimination  has  been  made 
about  these.  They  are  lamentable,  undeniable ;  but  after 
all,  what  has  Luther  or  his  cause  to  do  with  them  ?  It  seems 
strange  reasoning  to  charge  the  Reformation  with  all  this. 
When  Hercules  turned  the  purifying  river  into  King 
Augeas's  stables,  I  have  no  doubt  the  confusion  that  re^ 
suited  was  considerable  all  around :  but  I  think  it  was  not 
Hercules's  blame ;  it  was  some  other's  blame  !  The  Refor= 
mation  might  bring  what  results  it  liked  when  it  came,  but 
the  Reformation  simply  could  not  help  coming.  To  all 
Popes  and  Popes'  advocates,  expostulating,  lamenting  and 
accusing,  the  answer  of  the  world  is  :  Once  for  all,  your 
Popehood  has  become  untrue.  No  matter  how  good  it  was, 
how  good  you  say  it  is,  we  cannot  believe  it;  the  light  of  our 
whole  mind,  given  us  to  walk  by  from  Heaven  above,  finds 
it  henceforth  a  thing  unbelievable.  We  will  not  believe  it, 
we  will  not  try  to  believe  it,  —  we  dare  not!  The  thing  is 
untrue;  we  were  traitors  against  the  Giver  of  all  Truth,  if 
we  durst  pretend  to  think  it  true.  Away  with  it ;  let  whatso- 
ever likes  come  in  the  place  of  it :  with  it  we  can  have  no 
farther  trade  !  —  Luther  and  his  Protestantism  is  not  respon- 
sible for  wars ;  the  false  Simulacra  that  forced  him  to  pro- 
test, they  are  responsible.  Luther  did  what  every  man  that 
God  has  made  has  not  only  the  right,  but  lies  under  the 
sacred  duty,  to  do:  answered  a  Falsehood  when  it  ques- 
tioned him,  Dost  thou  believe  me  ?  —  No  !  —  At  what  cost 
soever,  without  counting  of  costs,  this  thing   behoved  to 


I  $2  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

be  done.  Union,  organization  spiritual  and  material,  a  far 
nobler  than  any  Popedom  or  Feudalism  in  their  truest  days. 
I  never  doubt,  is  coming  for  the  world;  sure  to  come.  But 
on  Fact  alone,  not  on  Semblance  and  Simulacrum,  will  it  be 
able  either  to  come,  or  to  stand  when  come.  With  union 
grounded  on  falsehood,  and  ordering  us  to  speak  and  act 
lies,  we  will  not  have  any  thing  to  do.  Peace  ?  A  brutal 
lethargy  is  peaceable,  the  noisome  grave  is  peaceable.  We 
hope  for  a  living  peace,  not  a  dead  one  ! 

And  yet,  in  prizing  justly  the  indispensable  blessings  of 
the  New,  let  us  not  be  unjust  to  the  Old.  The  Old  was 
true,  if  it  no  longer  is.  In  Dante's  days  it  needed  no 
sophistry,  self-blinding  or  other  dishonesty,  to  get  itself 
reckoned  true.  It  was  good  then;  nay  there  is  in  the  soul 
of  it  a  deathless  good.  The  cry  of  "  No  Popery"  is  foolish 
enough  in  these  days.  The  speculation  that  Popery  is  on 
the  increase,  building  new  chapels  and  so  forth,  may  pass 
for  one  of  the  idlest  ever  started.  Very  curious  :  to  count  up 
a  few  Popish  chapels,  listen  to  a  few  Protestant  logic-chop- 
pings,  —  to  much  dull-droning  drowsy  inanity  that  still  calls 
itself  Protestant,  and  say:  See,  Protestantism  is  dead;  Pope- 
ism  is  more  alive  than  it,  will  be  alive  after  it !  —  Drowsy 
inanities,  not  a  few,  that  call  themselves  Protestant  are  dead; 
but  Protestantism  has  not  died  yet,  that  I  hear  of  !  Protes- 
tantism, if  we  will  look,  has  in  these  days  produced  its 
Goethe,  its  Napoleon ;  German  Literature  and  the  French 
Revolution ;  rather  considerable  signs  of  life !  Na}r,  at 
bottom,  what  else  is  alive  but  Protestantism  ?  The  life  of 
most  else  that  one  meets  is  a  galvanic  one  merely,  —  not  a 
pleasant,  not  a  lasting  sort  of  life  ! 

Popery  can  build  new  chapels ;  welcome  to  do  so,  to  all 
lengths.  Popery  cannot  come  back,  any  more  than  Pagan- 
ism can,  —  which  also  still  lingers  in  some  countries.     But, 


THE  HERO  AS  PR /EST.  153 

indeed,  it  is  with  these  things,  as  with  the  ebbing  of  the 
sea :  you  look  at  the  waves  oscillating  hither,  thither  on 
the  beach  ;  for  minutes  you  cannot  tell  how  it  is  going ; 
iook  in  half  an  hour  where  it  is,  —  look  in  half  a  century 
where  your  Popehood  is!  Alas,  would  there  were  no  greater 
danger  to  our  Europe  than  the  poor  old  Pope's  revival! 
Thor  may  as  soon  try  to  revive.  —  And  withal  this  oscilla- 
tion has  a  meaning.  The  poor  old  Popehood  will  not  die 
away  entirely,  as  Thor  has  done,  for  some  time  yet ;  nor 
ought  it.  We  may  say,  the  Old  never  dies  till  this  happen, 
Till  all  the  soul  of  good  that  was  in  it  have  got  itself  trans- 
fused into  the  practical  New.  While  a  good  work  remains 
capable  of  being  done  by  the  Romish  form;  or,  what  is 
inclusive  of  all,  while  a  pious  life  remains  capable  of  being 
led  by  it,  just  so  long,  if  we  consider,  will  this  or  the  other 
human  soul  adopt  it,  go  about  as  a  living  witness  of  it.  So 
long  it  will  obtrude  itself  on  the  eye  of  us  who  reject  it,  till 
we  in  our  practice  too  have  appropriated  whatsoever  of  truth 
was  in  it.  Then,  but  also  not  till  then,  it  will  have  no 
charm  more  for  any  man.  It  lasts  here  for  a  purpose.  Let 
it  last  as  long  as  it  can. 

Of  Luther  I  will  add  now,  in  reference  to  all  these  wars 
and  bloodshed,  the  noticeable  fact  that  none  of  them  began 
so  long  as  he  continued  living.  The  controversy  did  not 
get  to  fighting  so  long  as  he  was  there.  To  me  it  is  proof 
of  his  greatness  in  all  senses,  this  fact.  How  seldom  do 
we  find  a  man  that  has  stirred  up  some  vast  commotion, 
who  does  not  himself  perish,  swept  away  in  it !  Such  is  the 
usual  course  of  revolutionists.  Luther  continued,  in  a  good 
degree,  sovereign  of  this  greatest  revolution ;  all  Protestants, 
of  what  rank  or  function  soever,  looking  much  to  him  for 
guidance  :  and  he  held  it  peaceable,  continued  firm  at  the 


154  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

centre  of  it.  A  man  to  do  this  must  have  a  kingly  faculty: 
he  must  have  the  gift  to  discern  at  all  turns  where  the  true 
heart  of  the  matter  lies,  and  to  plant  himself  courageously 
on  that,  as  a  strong  true  man,  that  other  true  men  may  rally 
round  him  there.  He  will  not  continue  leader  of  men  other- 
wise. Luther's  clear  deep  force  of  judgment,  his  force  of 
all  sorts,  of  silence,  of  tolerance  and  moderation,  among 
others,  are  very  notable  in  these  circumstances. 

Tolerance,  I  say;  a  very  genuine  kind  of  tolerance:  he 
distinguishes  what  is  essential,  and  what  is  not ;  the  unes- 
sential may  go  very  much  as  it  will.  A  complaint  comes  to 
him  that  such  and  such  a  Reformed  Preacher  "will  not 
preach  without  a  cassock."  Well,  answers  Luther,  what 
harm  will  a  cassock  do  the  man?  "Let  him  have  a  cassock 
to  preach  in ;  let  him  have  three  cassocks  if  he  find  benefit 
in  them  !  "  His  conduct  in  the  matter  of  Karlstadt's  wild 
image-breaking;  of  the  Anabaptists;  of  the  Peasants'  War, 
shows  a  noble  strength,  very  different  from  spasmodic  vio- 
lence. With  sure  prompt  insight  he  discriminates  what  is 
what :  a  strong  just  man,  he  speaks  forth  what  is  the  wise 
course,  and  all  men  follow  him  in  that.     LutL  Written 

Works  give  similar  testimony  of  him.  The  dialect  ,f  these 
speculations  is  now  grown  obsolete  for  us ;  but  one  still 
reads  them  with  a  singular  attraction.  And  indeed  the 
mere  grammatical  diction  is  still  legible  enough  ;  Luther's 
merit  in  literary  history  is  of  the  greatest ;  his  dialect  be- 
came the  language  of  all  writing.  They  are  not  well  written, 
these  Four-and-twenty  Quartos  of  his ;  written  hastily, 
with  quite  other  than  literary  objects.  But  in  no  Books  have 
I  found  a  more  robust,  genuine,  I  will  say  noble  faculty 
of  a  man  than  in  these.  A  rugged  honesty,  homeliness, 
simplicity;  a  rugged  sterling  sense  and  strength.  He  flashes 
out   illumination  from  him ;   his  smiting  idiomatic  phrases 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  ItEkO  AS  PA' /EST.  \$$ 

seem  to  cleave  into  the  very  secret  of  the  matter.  Good 
humor  too,  nay  tender  affection,  nobleness,  and  depth :  this 
man  could  have  been  a  Poet  too !  He  had  to  work  an  Epic 
Poem,  not  write  one.  I  call  him  a  great  Thinker;  as  indeed 
his  greatness  of  heart  already  betokens  that. 

Richter  says  of  Luther's  words,  "his  words  are  half- 
battles."  They  may  Le  called  so.  The  essential  quality  of 
him  was,  that  he  could  fight  and  conquer;  that  he  was  a 
right  piece  of  human  Valor.  No  more  valiant  man,  no 
mortal  heart  to  be  called  braver,  that  one  has  record  of, 
ever  lived  in  that  Teutonic  Kindred,  whose  character  is 
valor.  His  defiance  of  the  "  Devils  "  in  Worms  was  not 
a  mere  boast,  as  the  like  might  be  if  now  spoken.  It  was  a 
faith  of  Luther's  that  there  were  Devils,  spiritual  denizens 
of  the  Pit,  continually  besetting  men.  Many  times,  in  his 
writings,  this  turns  up  ;  and  a  most  small  sneer  has  been 
grounded  on  it  by  some.  In  the  room  of  the  Wartburg 
where  he  sat  translating  the  Bible,  they  still  show  you  a 
black  spot  on  the  wall;  the  strange  memorial  of  one  of  these 
conflicts.  Luther  sat  translating  one  of  the  Psalms ;  he  was 
worn  down  with  long  labor,  with  sickness,  abstinence  from 
food  :  there  rose  before  him  some  hideous  indefinable  Image, 
which  he  took  for  the  Evil  One,  to  forbid  his  work  :  Luther 
started  up,  with  fiend-defiance;  flung  his  inkstand  at  the 
spectre,  and  it  disappeared !  The  spot  still  remains  there  ; 
a  curious  monument  of  several  things.  Any  apothecary's 
apprentice  can  now  tell  us  what  we  are  to  think  of  this 
apparition,  in  a  scientific  sense :  but  the  man's  heart  that 
dare  rise  defiant,  face  to  face,  against  Hell  itself,  can  give 
no  higher  proof  of  fearlessness.  The  thing  he  will  quail 
before  exists  not  on  this  Earth  or  under  it.  —  Fearless 
enough  !  "  The  Devil  is  aware,"  writes  he  on  one  occasion, 
"that  this  does  not  proceed  out  of  fear  in  me.     I  have  seen 


I56  LECTURES   ON  HEROES. 

and  defied  innumerable  Devils.  Duke  George,"  of  Leipzig, 
a  great  enemy  of  his,  "  Duke  George  is  not  equal  to  one 
Devil," — far  short  of  a  Devil!  "If  I  had  business  at 
Leipzig,  I  would  ride  into  Leipzig,  though  it  rained  Duke- 
Georges  for  nine  days  running."  What  a  reservoir  of 
Dukes  to  ride  into  !  — 

At  the  same  time,  they  err  greatly  who  imagine  that  this 
man's  courage  was  ferocity,  mere  coarse  disobedient  obsti- 
nacy and  savagery,  as  many  do  Far  from  that.  There 
may  be  an  absence  of  fear  which  arises  from  the  absence  of 
thought  or  affection,  from  the  presence  of  hatred  and  stupid 
fury.  We  do  not  value  the  courage  of  the  tiger  highly  ! 
With  Luther  it  was  far  otherwise  ;  no  accusation  could  be 
more  unjust  that  this  of  mere  ferocious  violence  brought 
against  him.  A  most  gentle  heart  withal,  full  of  pity  and 
love,  as  indeed  the  truly  valiant  heart  ever  is.  The  tiger 
before  a  stronger  foe  —  flies :  the  tiger  is  not  what  we  call 
valiant,  only  fierce  and  cruel.  I  know  few  things  more 
touching  than  those  soft  breathings  of  affection,  soft  as  a 
child's  or  a  mother's,  in  this  great  wild  heart  of  Luther. 
So  honest,  unadulterated  with  any  cant ;  homely,  rude  in 
their  utterance  ;  pure  as  water  welling  from  the  rock.  What, 
in  fact,  was  all  that  downpressed  mood  of  despair  and  repro- 
bation, which  we  saw  in  his  youth,  but  the  outcome  of  pre- 
eminent thoughtful  gentleness,  affections  too  keen  and  fine  ? 
It  is  the  course  such  men  as  the  poor  Poet  Cowper  fall  into. 
Luther  to  a  slight  observer  might  have  seemed  a  timid,  weak 
man;  modesty,  affectionate  shrinking  tenderness  the  chief 
distinction  of  him.  It  is  a  noble  valor  which  is  roused  in  a 
heart  like  this,  once  stirred  up  into  defiance,  all  kindled  into 
a  heavenly  blaze. 

In  Luther's  Table-Talk,  a  posthumous  Book  of  anecdotes 
and  sayings   collected  by  his   friends,  the  most  interesting 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  1 57 

now  of  all  the  Books  proceeding  from  him,  we  have  many 
beautiful  unconscious  displays  of  the  man,  and  what  sort  of 
nature  he  had.  His  behavior  at  the  deathbed  of  his  little 
Daughter,  so  still,  so  great  and  loving,  is  among  the  most 
affecting  things.  He  is  resigned  that  his  little  Magdalene 
should  die,  yet  longs  inexpressibly  that  she  might  live ;  — 
follows,  in  awestruck  thought,  the  flight  of  her  little  soul 
through  those  unknown  realms.  Awestruck  ;  most  heartfelt, 
we  can  see  ;  and  sincere, — for  after  all  dogmatic  creeds  and 
articles,  he  feels  what  nothing  it  is  that  we  know,  or  can 
know:  His  little  Magdalene  shall  be  with  God,  as  God 
wills ;  for  Luther  too  that  is  all ;  Islam  is  all. 

Once,  he  looks  out  from  his  solitary  Patmos,  the  Castle 
of  Coburg,  in  the  middle  of  the  night :  The  great  vault  of 
Immensity,  long  flights  of  clouds  sailing  through  it,  —  dumb, 
gaunt,  huge  :  —  who  supports  all  that  ?  "  None  ever  saw 
the  pillars  of  it;  yet  it  is  supported."  God  supports  it. 
We  must  know  that  God  is  great,  that  God  is  good;  and 
trust,  where  we  cannot  see.  —  Returning  home  from  Leipzig 
once,  he  is  struck  by  the  beauty  of  the  harvest-fields  :  How 
it  stands,  that  golden  yellow  corn,  on  its  fair  taper  stem,  its 
golden  head  bent,  all  rich  and  waving  there, — the  meek 
Earth,  at  God's  kind  bidding,  has  produced  it  once  again ; 
the  bread  of  man! —  In  the  garden  at  Wittenberg  one  even- 
ing at  sunset,  a  little  bird  has  perched  for  the  night :  That 
little  bird,  says  Luther,  above  it  are  the  stars  and  deep 
Heaven  of  worlds  ;  yet  it  has  folded  its  little  wings  ;  gone 
trustfully  to  rest  there  as  in  its  home :  the  Maker  of  it  has 

given  it  too  a  home  ! Neither  are  mirthful  turns  wanting : 

there  is  a  great  free  human  heart  in  this  man.  The  common 
speech  of  him  has  a  rugged  nobleness,  idiomatic,  expressive, 
genuine ;  gleams  here  and  there  with  beautiful  poetic  tints. 
One   feels  him  to  be  a  great  brother  man.     His  love   of 


158  LECTURES   ON  HEROES. 

Music,  indeed,  is  not  this,  as  it  were,  the  summary  of  all 
these  affections  in  him  ?  Many  a  wild  unutterability  he 
spoke  forth  from  him  in  the  tones  of  his  flute.  The  Devils 
fled  from  his  flute,  he  says.  Death-defiance  on  the  one 
hand,  and  such  love  of  music  on  the  other;  I  could  call 
these  the  two  opposite  poles  of  a  great  soul ;  between  these 
two  all  great  things  had  room. 

Luther's  face  is  to  me  expressive  of  him;  in  Kranach's 
best  portraits  I  find  the  true  Luther.  A  rude  plebeian  face ; 
with  its  huge  crag-like  brows  and  bones,  the  emblem  of 
rugged  energy;  at  first,  almost  a  repulsive  face.  Yet  in  the 
eyes  especially  there  is  a  wild  silent  sorrow ;  an  unnamable 
melancholy,  the  element  of  all  gentle  and  fine  affections ; 
giving  to  the  rest  the  true  stamp  of  nobleness.  Laughter 
was  in  this  Luther,  as  we  said ;  but  tears  also  were  there. 
Tears  also  were  appointed  him;  tears  and  hard  toil.  The 
basis  of  his  life  was  Sadness,  Earnestness.  In  his  latter 
days,  after  all  triumphs  and  victories,  he  expresses  himself 
heartily  weary  of  living;  he  considers  that  God  alone  can 
and  will  regulate  the  course  things  are  taking,  and  that  per- 
haps the  Day  of  Judgment  is  not  far.  As  for  him,  he  longs 
for  one  thing:  that  God  would  release  him  from  his  labor, 
and  let  him  depart  and  be  at  rest.  They  understand  little 
of  the  man  who  cite  this  in  dwcredit  of  him !  —  I  will  call 
this  Luther  a  true  Great  Man ;  great  in  intellect,  in  courage, 
affection  and  integrity  ;  one  of  our  most  lovable  and  pre- 
cious men.  Great,  not  as  a  hewn  obelisk;  but  as  an  Alpine 
mountain,  —  so  simple,  honest,  spontaneous,  not  setting  up 
to  be  great  at  all;  there  for  quite  another  purpose  than 
being  great !  Ah  yes,  unsubduable  granite,  piercing  far  and 
wide  into  the  Heavens ;  yet  in  the  clefts  of  its  fountains, 
green  beautiful  valleys  with  flowers  !  A  right  Spiritual  Hero 
and  Prophet;  once  more,  a  true  Son  of  Mature  and  Fact; 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  \% 

for  whom  these  centuries,  and  many  that  are  to  come  yet, 
will  be  thankful  to  Heaven. 

The  most  interesting  phasis  which  the  Reformation  any- 
where assumes,  especially  for  us  English,  is  that  of  Puritan- 
ism. In  Luther's  own  country  Protestantism  soon  dwindled 
into  a  rather  barren  affair :  not  a  religion  or  faith,  but  rather 
now  a  theological  jangling  of  argument,  the  proper  seat  of 
it  not  the  heart ;  the  essence  of  it  sceptical  contention : 
which  indeed  has  jangled  more  and  more,  down  to  Vol- 
taireism  itself,  —  through  Gustavus-Adolphus  contentions 
onward  to  French-Revolution  ones!  But  in  our  Island 
there  arose  a  Puritanism,  which  even  got  itself  established 
as  a  Presbyterianism  and  National  Church  among  the 
Scotch ;  which  came  forth  as  a  real  business  of  the  heart ; 
and  has  produced  in  the  world  very  notable  fruit.  In  some 
senses,  one  may  say  it  is  the  only  phasis  of  Protestantism 
that  ever  got  to  the  rank  of  being  a  Faith,  a  true  heart- 
communication  with  Heaven,  and  of  exhibiting  itself  in 
History  as  such.  We  must  spare  a  few  words  for  Knox; 
himself  a  brave  and  remarkable  man;  but  still  more  impor- 
tant as  Chief  Priest  and  Founder,  which  one  may  consider 
him  to  be,  of  the  Faith  that  became  Scotland's,  New  Eng- 
land's, Oliver  Cromwell's.  History  will  have  something  to 
say  about  this,  for  some  time  to  come  ! 

We  may  censure  Puritanism  as  we  please ;  and  no  one  of 
us,  I  suppose,  but  would  find  it  a  very  rough  defective  thing. 
But  we,  and  all  men,  may  understand  that  it  was  a  genuine 
thing;  for  Nature  has  adopted  it,  and  it  has  grown,  and 
grows.  I  say  sometimes,  that  all  goes  by  wager-of-battle  in 
this  world;  that  strength,  well  understood,  is  the  measure 
of  all  worth.  Give  a  thing  time ;  if  it  can  succeed,  it  is  a 
right  thing.  Look  now  at  American  Saxondom;  and  at  that 
Jittle  Fact  of  the  sailing  of  the  Mayflower,  two  hundred  years 


l60  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

ago,  from  Delft  Haven  in  Holland !  Were  we  of  open  sense 
as  the  Greeks  were,  we  had  found  a  Poem  here;  one  of 
Nature's  own  Poems,  such  as  she  writes  in  broad  facts  over 
great  continents.  For  it  was  properly  the  beginning  of 
America :  there  were  straggling  settlers  in  America  before, 
some  material  as  of  a  body  was  there ;  but  the  soul  of  it  was 
first  this.  These  poor  men,  driven  out  of  their  own  country, 
not  able  well  to  live  in  Holland,  determine  on  settling  in  the 
New  World.  Black  untamed  forests  are  there,  and  wild 
savage  creatures ;  but  not  so  cruel  as  Starchamber  hangmen. 
They  thought  the  Earth  would  yield  them  food,  if  they  tilled 
honestly ;  the  everlasting  heaven  would  stretch,  there  too, 
overhead ;  they  should  be  left  in  peace,  to  prepare  for  Eter- 
nity by  living  well  in  this  world  of  Time ;  worshipping  in 
what  they  thought  the  true,  not  the  idolatrous  way.  They 
clubbed  their  small  means  together;  hired  a  ship,  the  little 
ship  Mayflower,  and  made  ready  to  set  sail. 

In  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans  «  is  an  account  of  the 
ceremony  of  their  departure  :  solemnity,  we  might  call  it 
rather,  for  it  was  a  real  act  of  worship.  Their  minister  went 
down  with  them  to  the  beach,  and  their  brethren  whom  they 
were  to  leave  behind  ;  all  joined  in  solemn  prayer,  That  God 
would  have  pity  on  His  poor  children,  and  go  with  them  into 
that  waste  wilderness,  for  He  also  had  made  that,  He  was 
there  also  as  well  as  here.  —  Hah  !  These  men,  I  think,  had 
a  work !  The  weak  thing,  weaker  than  a  child,  becomes 
strong  one  day,  if  it  be  a  true  thing.  Puritanism  was  only 
despicable,  laughable  then ;  but  nobody  can  manage  to 
laugh  at  it  now.  Puritanism  has  got  weapons  and  sinews  ; 
it  has  fire-arms,  war-navies  ;  it  has  cunning  in  its  ten  fingers, 
strength  in  its  right  arm;  it  can  steer  ships,  fell  forests, 
remove  mountains ;  —  it  is  one  of  the  strongest  things 
under  this  sun  at  present ! 

I  ]Neal  (London,  1775),  i.  490, 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  l6l 

In  the  history  of  Scotland,  too,  I  can  find  properly  but  one 
epoch  :  we  may  say,  it  contains  nothing  of  world-interest  at 
all  but  this  Reformation  by  Knox.  A  poor  barren  coun- 
try, full  of  continual  broils,  dissensions,  massacrings ;  a 
people  in  the  last  state  of  rudeness  and  destitution,  little 
better  perhaps  than  Ireland  at  this  day.  Hungry  fierce 
barons,  not  so  much  as  able  to  form  any  arrangement  with 
each  other  how  to  divide  what  they  fleeced  from  these  poor 
drudges ;  but  obliged,  as  the  Columbian  Republics  are  at 
this  day,  to  make  of  every  alteration  a  revolution  ;  no  way 
of  changing  a  ministry  but  by  hanging  the  old  ministers  on 
gibbets :  this  is  a  historical  spectacle  of  no  very  singular 
significance!  "Bravery"  enough,  I  doubt  not;  fierce  fight- 
ing in  abundance  :  but  not  braver  or  fiercer  than  that  of 
their  old  Scandinavian  Sea-king  ancestors ;  whose  exploits 
we  have  not  found  worth  dwelling  on !  It  is  a  country  as 
yet  without  a  soul :  nothing  developed  in  it  but  what  is  rude, 
external,  semi-animal.  And  now  at  the  Reformation,  the 
internal  life  is  kindled,  as  it  were,  under  the  ribs  of  this 
outward  material  death.  A  cause,  the  noblest  of  causes, 
kindles  itself,  like  a  beacon  set  on  high ;  high  as  Heaven, 
yet  attainable  from  Earth ;  —  whereby  the  meanest  man 
becomes  not  a  Citizen  only,  but  a  member  of  Christ's  visible 
Church ;  a  veritable  Hero,  if  he  prove  a  true  man ! 

Well ;  this  is  what  I  mean  by  a  whole  "  nation  of  heroes ;  " 
a  believing  nation.  There  needs  not  a  great  soul  to  make  a 
hero  ;  there  needs  a  god-created  soul  which  will  be  true  to 
its  origin ;  that  will  be  a  great  soul !  The  like  has  been  seen, 
we  find.  The  like  will  be  again  seen,  under  wider  forms 
than  the  Presbyterian :  there  can  be  no  lasting  good  done 
till  then.  —  Impossible  !  say  some.  Possible  ?  Has  it  not 
been,  in  this  world,  as  a  practised  fact  ?  Did  Hero-worship 
fail  in  Knox's  case  ?    Or  are  we  made  of  other  clay  now  \ 


1 62  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Did  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith  add  some  new 
property  to  the  soul  of  man?  God  made  the  soul  of  man. 
He  did  not  doom  any  soul  of  man  to  live  as  a  Hypothesis 
and  Hearsay,  in  a  world  filled  with  such,  and  with  the  fatal 

work  and  fruit  of  such  ! 

But  to  return  :  This  that  Knox  did  for  his  Nation,  I  say, 
we  may  really  call  a  resurrection  as  from  death.  It  was  not 
a  smooth  business ;  but  it  was  welcome  surely,  and  cheap  at 
that  price,  had  it  been  far  rougher.  On  the  whole,  cheap 
at  any  price  ;  —  as  life  is.  The  people  began  to  live  :  they 
needed  first  of  all  to  do  that,  at  what  cost  and  costs  soever. 
Scotch  Literature  and  Thought,  Scotch  Industry ;  James 
Watt,  David  Hume,  Walter  Scott,  Robert  Burns:  I  find 
Knox  and  the  Reformation  acting  in  the  heart's  core  of 
every  one  of  these  persons  and  phenomena;  I  find  that  with- 
out the  Reformation  they  would  not  have  been.  Or  what 
of  Scotland  ?  The  Puritanism  of  Scotland  became  that  of 
England,  of  New  England.  A  tumult  in  the  High  Church  of 
Edinburgh  spread  into  a  universal  battle  and  struggle  over 
all  these  realms ;  —  there  came  out,  after  fifty  years'  strug- 
gling, what  we  all  call  the  "  Glorious  Revolution,"  a  Habeas 
Corpus  Act,  Free  Parliaments,  and  much  else  !  —  Alas,  is  it 
not  too  true  what  we  said,  That  many  men  in  the  van 
do  always,  like  Russian  soldiers,  march  into  the  ditch  of 
Schweidnitz,  and  fill  it  up  with  their  dead  bodies,  that  the 
rear  may  pass  over  them  dry  shod,  and  gain  the  honor  ? 
How  many  earnest  rugged  Cromwells,  Knoxes,  poor  peas- 
ant Covenanters,  wrestling,  battling  for  very  life,  in  rough 
miry  places,  have  to  struggle,  and  suffer,  and  fall,  greatly 
censured,  bemired,  —  before  a  beautiful  Revolution  of 
pighty-eight  can  step  over  them  in  official  pumps  and  silk 
Stockings,  with  universal  three-times-three  ! 

It  seejns  t?  me  hard  measure  that  this.  Scottish  man,  now 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  1 63 

after  three  hundred  years,  should  have  to  plead  like  a  culprit 
before  the  world ;  intrinsically  for  having  been,  in  such  way 
as  it  was  then  possible  to  be,  the  bravest  of  all  Scotchmen ! 
Had  he  been  a  poor  Half-and-half,  he  could  have  crouched 
into  the  corner,  like  so  many  others  ;  Scotland  had  not  been 
delivered ;  and  Knox  had  been  without  blame.  He  is  the 
one  Scotchman  to  whom,  of  all  others,  his  country  and  the 
world  owe  a  debt.  He  has  to  plead  that  Scotland  would  for- 
give him  for  having  been  worth  to  it  any  million  "  unblamable  " 
Scotchmen  that  need  no  forgiveness  !  He  bared  his  breast 
to  the  battle  ;  had  to  row  in  French  galleys,  wander  forlorn 
in  exile,  in  clouds  and  storms ;  was  censured,  shot  at  through 
his  windows  ;  had  a  right  sore  fighting  life :  if  this  world 
were  his  place  of  recompense,  he  had  made  but  a  bad  ven- 
ture of  it.  I  cannot  apologize  for  Knox.  To  him  it  is  very 
indifferent,  these  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  or  more,  what 
men  say  of  him.  But  we,  having  got  above  all  those  details 
of  his  battle,  and  living  now  in  clearness  on  the  fruits  of  his 
victory,  we,  for  our  own  sake,  ought  to  look  through  the 
rumors  and  controversies  enveloping  the  man,  into  the  man 
himself. 

For  one  thing,  I  will  remark  that  this  post  of  Prophet  to 
his  Nation  was  not  of  his  seeking;  Knox  had  lived  forty 
years  quietly  obscure,  before  he  became  conspicuous.  He 
was  the  son  of  poor  parents ;  had  got  a  college  education ; 
become  a  Priest ;  adopted  the  Reformation,  and  seemed  well 
content  to  guide  his  own  steps  by  the  light  of  it,  nowise 
unduly  intruding  it  on  others.  He  had  lived  as  Tutor  in 
gentlemen's  families ;  preaching  when  any  body  of  persons 
wished  to  hear  his  doctrine :  resolute  he  to  walk  by  the  truth, 
and  speak  the  truth  when  called  to  do  it ;  not  ambitious  of 
more;  not  fancying  himself  capable  of  more.  In  this 
entirely  obscure  way  he  had  reached  the  age  of  forty ;  was 


164  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

with  the  small  body  of  Reformers  who  were  standing  siege 
in  St.  Andrew's  Castle,  —  when  one  day  in  their  chapel,  the 
Preacher  after  finishing  his  exhortation  to  these  fighters  in 
the  forlorn  hope,  said  suddenly,  That  there  ought  to  be  other 
speakers,  that  all  men  who  had  a  priest's  heart  and  gift  in 
them  ought  now  to  speak ;  —  which  gifts  and  heart  one  of 
their  own  number,  John  Knox  the  name  of  him,  had :  Had 
he  not  ?  said  the  Preacher,  appealing  to  all  the  audience  : 
what  then  is  his  duty  ?  The  people  answered  affirmatively; 
it  was  a  criminal  forsaking  of  his  post,  if  such  a  man  held 
the  word  that  was  in  him  silent.  Poor  Knox  was  obliged  to 
stand  up;  he  attempted  to  reply;  he  could  say  no  word;  — 
burst  into  a  flood  of  tears,  and  ran  out.  It  is  worth  remem- 
bering, that  scene.  He  was  in  grievous  trouble  for  some 
days.  He  felt  what  a  small  faculty  was  his  for  this  great 
work.  He  felt  what  a  baptism  he  was  called  to  be  baptized 
withal.     He  "  burst  into  tears." 

Our  primary  characteristic  of  a  Hero,  that  he  is  sincere, 
applies  emphatically  to  Knox.  It  is  not  denied  anywhere 
that  this,  whatever  might  be  his  other  qualities  or  faults,  is 
among  the  truest  of  men.  With  a  singular  instinct  he  holds 
to  the  truth  and  fact ;  the  truth  alone  is  there  for  him,  the 
rest  a  mere  shadow  and  deceptive  nonentity.  However 
feeble,  forlorn,  the  reality  may  seem,  on  that  and  that  only 
can  he  take  his  stand.  In  the  Galleys  of  the  River  Loire, 
whither  Knox  and  the  others,  after  their  Castle  of  St. 
Andrew's  was  taken,  had  been  sent  as  Galley-slaves,  — some 
officer  or  priest,  one  day,  presented  them  an  Image  of  the 
Virgin  Mother,  requiring  that  they,  the  blasphemous  heretics, 
should  do  it  reverence.  Mother?  Mother  of  God?  said 
Knox,  when  the  turn  came  to  him :  This  is  no  Mother  of 
God  :  this  is  "a pented bredd" —  a  piece  of  wood,  I  tell  you 
with  paint  on  jt  |     She  is  fitter  for  swimming,  I  think,  than 


THE  MEkO  AS  PRIEST.  1 6$ 

for  being  worshipped,  added  Knox ;  and  flung  the  thing  into 
the  river.  It  was  not  very  cheap  jesting  there  :  but  come  of 
it  what  might,  this  thing  to  Knox  was  and  must  continue 
nothing  other  than  the  real  truth;  it  was  a  pented  bredd : 
worship  it  he  would  not. 

He  told  his  fellow-prisoners,  in  this  darkest  time,  to  be  of 
courage;  the  Cause  they  had  was  the  true  one,  and  must 
and  would  prosper ;  the  whole  world  could  not  put  it  down. 
Reality  is  of  God's  making ;  it  is  alone  strong.  How  many 
pented  dredds,  pretending  to  be  real,  are  fitter  to  swim  than 
to  be  worshipped  !  —  This  Knox  cannot  live  but  by  fact :  he 
clings  to  reality  as  the  shipwrecked  sailor  to  the  cliff.  He 
is  an  instance  to  us  how  a  man,  by  sincerity  itself,  becomes 
heroic :  it  is  the  grand  gift  he  has.  We  find  in  Knox  a  good 
honest  intellectual  talent,  no  transcendent  one  ;  — a  narrow, 
inconsiderable  man,  as  compared  with  Luther:  but  in  heart- 
felt instinctive  adherence  to  truth,  in  sincerity,  as  we  say,  he 
has  no  superior :  nay,  one  might  ask,  What  equal  he  has  ? 
The  heart  of  him  is  of  the  true  Prophet  cast.  "  He  lies 
there,"  said  the  Earl  of  Morton  at  his  grave,  "who  never 
feared  the  face  of  man."  He  resembles,  more  than  any  of 
the  moderns,  an  Old-Hebrew  Prophet.  The  same  inflexi- 
bility, intolerance,  rigid  narrow-looking  adherence  to  God's 
truth,  stern  rebuke  in  the  name  of  God  to  all  that  forsake 
truth  :  an  Old-Hebrew  Prophet  in  the  guise  of  an  Edinburgh 
Minister  of  the  Sixteenth  Century.  We  are  to  take  him  for 
that ;  not  require  him  to  be  other. 

Knox's  conduct  to  Queen  Mary,  the  harsh  visits  he  used 
to  make  in  her  own  palace,  to  reprove  her  there,  have  been 
much  commented  upon.  Such  cruelty,  such  coarseness,  fills 
us  with  indignation.  On  reading  the  actual  narrative  of  the 
business,  what  Knox  said,  and  what  Knox  meant,  I  must  say 
one's  tragic  feeling  is  rather  disappointed.     They  are  not  so 


1 66  LECTURES  ON1  HEROES. 

coarse,  these  speeches;  they  seem  to  me  about  as  fine  as 
the  circumstances  would  permit !  Knox  was  not  there  to  do 
the  courtier ;  he  came  on  another  errand.  Whoever,  reading 
these  colloquies  of  his  with  the  Queen,  thinks  they  are 
vulgar  insolences  of  a  plebeian  priest  to  a  delicate  high  lady, 
mistakes  the  purport  and  essence  of  them  altogether.  It 
was  unfortunately  not  possible  to  be  polite  with  the  Queen  of 
Scotland,  unless  one  proved  untrue  to  the  Nation  and  Cause 
of  Scotland.  A  man  who  did  not  wish  to  see  the  land  of  his 
birth  made  a  hunting-field  for  intriguing  ambitious  Guises, 
and  the  Cause  of  God  trampled  underfoot  of  Falsehoods, 
Formulas  and  the  Devil's  Cause,  had  no  method  of  making 
himself  agreeable  !  "  Better  that  women  weep,"  said  Morton, 
"  than  that  bearded  men  be  forced  to  weep."  Knox  was  the 
constitutional  opposition-party  in  Scotland :  the  nobles  of 
the  country,  called  by  their  station  to  take  that  post,  were 
not  found  in  it ;  Knox  had  to  go,  or  no  one.  The  hapless 
Queen ;  —  but  the  still  more  hapless  Country,  if  she  were 
made  happy !  Mary  herself  was  not  without  sharpness 
enough,  among  her  other  qualities:  "Who  are  you,"  said 
she  once,  "  that  presume  to  school  the  nobles  and  sovereign 
of  this  realm  ?  "  —  "  Madam,  a  subject  born  within  the  same," 
answered  he.  Reasonably  answered  !  If  the  "  subject "  have 
truth  to  speak,  it  is  not  the  "  subject's  "  footing  that  will  fail 
him  here. 

We  blame  Knox  for  his  intolerance.  Well,  surely  it  is 
good  that  each  of  us  be  as  tolerant  as  possible.  Yet,  at 
bottom,  after  all  the  talk  there  is  and  has  been  about  it, 
what  is  tolerance  ?  Tolerance  has  to  tolerate  the  unes- 
sential; and  to  see  well  what  that  is.  Tolerance  has  to  be 
noble,  measured,  just  in  its  very  wrath,  when  it  can  tolerate 
no  longer.  But,  on  the  whole,  we  are  not  altogether  here  to 
tolerate !     We   are  here  to  resist,  to  control  and  vanquish 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  167 

withal.  We  do  not  "tolerate"  Falsehoods,  Thieveries,  In- 
iquities, when  they  fasten  on  us ;  we  say  to  them,  Thou  art 
false,  thou  art  not  tolerable  !  We  are  here  to  extinguish  False- 
hoods, and  put  an  end  to  them,  in  some  wise  way !  I  will  not 
quarrel  so  much  with  the  way ;  the  doing  of  the  thing  is  our 
great  concern.  In  this  sense  Knox  was,  full  surely,  intolerant. 
A  man  sent  to  row  in  French  Galleys,  and  suchlike,  for 
teaching  the  Truth  in  his  own  land,  cannot  always  be  in  the 
mildest  humor !  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  Knox  had  a 
soft  temper;  nor  do  I  know  that  he  had  what  we  call  an 
ill  temper.  An  ill  nature  he  decidedly  had  not.  Kind  honest 
affections  dwelt  in  the  much-enduring,  hard-worn,  ever- 
battling  man.  That  he  could  rebuke  Queens,  and  had  such 
weight  among  those  proud  turbulent  Nobles,  proud  enough 
whatever  else  they  were ;  and  could  maintain  to  the  end 
a  kind  of  virtual  Presidency  and  Sovereignty  in  that  wild 
realm,  he  who  was  only  "a  subject  born  within  the  same:" 
this  of  itself  will  prove  to  us  that  he  was  found,  close  at 
hand,  to  be  no  mean  acrid  man;  but  at  heart  a  heathful, 
strong,  sagacious  man.  Such  alone  can  bear  rule  in  that 
kind.  They  blame  him  for  pulling  down  cathedrals,  and 
so  forth,  as  if  he  were  a  seditious  rioting  demagogue : 
precisely  the  reverse  is  seen  to  be  the  fact,  in  regard  to 
cathedrals  and  the  rest  of  it,  if  we  examine  !  Knox  wanted 
no  pulling-down  of  stone  edifices;  he  wanted  leprosy  and 
darkness  to  be  thrown  out  of  the  lives  of  men.  Tumult  was 
not  his  element;  it  was  the  tragic  feature  of  his  life  that  he 
was  forced  to  dwell  so  much  in  that.  Every  such  man  is 
the  born  enemy  of  Disorder ;  hates  to  be  in  it :  but  what 
then?  Smooth  Falsehood  is  not  order;  it  is  the  general 
sum-total  of  Z^/j-order.  Order  is  Truth,  —  each  thing  stand- 
ing on  the  basis  that  belongs  to  it :  Order  and  Falsehood 
cannot  subsist  together. 


1 68  LECTURES  ON-  HEROES. 

Withal,  unexpectedly  enough,  this  Knox  has  a  vein  of 
drollery  in  him;  which  I  like  much,  in  combination  with  his 
other  qualities.  He  has  a  true  eye-  for  the  ridiculous.  His 
History,  with  its  rough  earnestness,  is  curiously  enlivened 
with  this.  When  the  two  Prelates,  entering  Glasgow  Cathe- 
dral, quarrel  about  precedence ;  march  rapidly  up,  take  to 
hustling  one  another,  twitching  one  another's  rochets,  and 
at  last  flourishing  their  crosiers  like  quarter-staves,  it  is  a 
great  sight  for  him  every  way !  Not  mockery,  scorn,  bitter- 
ness alone;  though  there  is  enough  of  that  too.  But  a  true, 
loving,  illuminating  laugh  mounts  up  over  the  earnest  visage  ; 
not  a  loud  laugh ;  you  would  say,  a  laugh  in  the  eyes  most 
of  all.  An  honest-hearted,  brotherly  man;  brother  to  the 
high,  brother  also  to  the  low ;  sincere  in  his  sympathy  with 
both.  He  had  his  pipe  of  Bordeaux  too,  we  find,  in  that  old 
Edinburgh  house  of  his;  a  cheery  social  man,  with  faces 
that  loved  him  !  They  go  far  wrong  who  think  this  Knox 
was  a  gloomy,  spasmodic,  shrieking  fanatic.  Not  at  all :  he 
is  one  of  the  solidest  of  men.  Practical,  cautious-hopeful, 
patient;  a  most  shrewd,  observing,  quietly  discerning  man. 
In  fact,  he  has  very  much  the  type  of  character  we  assign  to 
the  Scotch  at  present:  a  certain  sardonic  taciturnity  is  in 
him;  insight  enough ;  and  a  stouter  heart  than  he  himself 
knows  of.  He  has  the  power  of  holding  his  peace  over 
many  things  which  do  not  vitally  concern  him,  —  "They? 
what  are  they?"  But  the  thing  which  does  vitally  concern 
him,  that  thing  he  will  speak  of;  and  in  a  tone  the  whole 
world  shall  be  made  to  hear :  all  the  more  emphatic  for  his 
long  silence. 

This  Prophet  of  the  Scotch  is  to  me  no  hateful  man  ! — He 
had  a  sore  fight  of  an  existence :  wrestling  with  Popes  and 
Principalities ;  in  defeat,  contention,  lifelong  struggle ;  row- 
ing as  a  galley-slave,  wandering  as  an  exile.     A  sore  fight: 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  1 69 

but  he  won  it.  "  Have  you  hope  ?  "  they  asked  him  in  his 
last  moment,  when  he  could  no  longer  speak.  He  lifted  his 
finger,  "pointed  upwards  with  his  finger,"  and  so  died. 
Honor  to  him!  His  works  have  not  died.  The  letter  of 
his  work  dies,  as  of  all  men's  ;  but  the  spirit  of  it  never. 

One  word  more  as  to  the  letter  of  Knox's  work.  The  un- 
forgivable offence  in  him  is,  that  he  wished  to  set  up  Priests 
over  the  head  of  Kings.  In  other  words,  he  strove  to  make 
the  Government  of  Scotland  a  Theocracy.  This  indeed  is 
properly  the  sum  of  his  offences,  the  essential  sin  ;  for  which 
what  pardon  can  there  be  ?  It  is  most  true,  he  did,  at  bottom, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  mean  a  Theocracy,  or  Govern- 
ment of  God.  He  did  mean  that  Kings  and  Prime  .Ministers, 
and  all  manner  of  persons,  in  public  or  private,  diplomatising 
or  whatever  else  they  might  be  doing,  should  walk  according 
to  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  and  understand  that  this  was  their 
Law,  supreme  over  all  laws.  He  hoped  once  to  see  such  a 
thing  realized ;  and  the  Petition,  Thy  Kingdom  come,  no 
longer  an  empty  word.  He  was  sore  grieved  when  he  saw 
greedy  worldly  Barons  clutch  hold  of  the  Church's  property; 
when  he  expostulated  that  it  was  not  secular  property,  that 
it  was  spiritual  property,  and  should  be  turned  to  true 
churchly  uses,  education,  schools,  worship;  —  and  the  Re- 
gent Murray  had  to  answer,  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders, 
"  It  is  a  devout  imagination  !  "  This  was  Knox's  scheme  of 
right  and  truth ;  this  he  zealously  endeavored  after,  to  real- 
ize it.  If  we  think  his  scheme  of  truth  was  too  narrow,  was 
not  true,  we  may  rejoice  that  he  could  not  realize  it ;  that  it 
remained  after  two  centuries  of  effort,  unrealizable,  and  is  a 
"devout  imagination"  still.  But  how  shall  we  blame  him 
for  struggling  to  realize  it?  Theocracy,  Government  of 
God,  is  precisely  the  thing  to  be  struggled  for!  All 
Prophets,    zealous    Priests,    are    there    for    that    purpose. 


1 70  LECTURES  ON-  HEROES. 

Hildebrand  wished  a  Theocracy ;  Cromwell  wished  it,  fought 
for  it ;  Mahomet  attained  it.  Nay,  is  it  not  what  all  zealous 
men,  whether  called  Priests,  Prophets,  or  whatsoever  else 
called,  do  essentially  wish,  and  must  wish  ?  That  right  and 
truth,  or  God's  Law,  reign  supreme  among  men,  this  is  the 
Heavenly  Ideal  (well  named  in  Knox's  time,  and  namable 
in  all  times,  a  revealed  "  Will  of  God  ")  towards  which  the 
Reformer  will  insist  that  all  be  more  and  more  approximated. 
All  true  Reformers,  as  I  said,  are  by  the  nature  of  them 
Priests,  and  strive  for  a  Theocracy. 

How  far  such  Ideals  can  ever  be  introduced  into  Practice, 
and  at  what  point  our  impatience  with  their  non-introduction 
ought  to  begin,  is  always  a  question.  I  think  we  may  say 
safely,  Let  them  introduce  themselves  as  far  as  they  can  con- 
trive to  do  it !  If  they  are  the  true  faith  of  men,  all  men  ought 
to  be  more  or  less  impatient  always  where  they  are  not  found 
introduced.  There  will  never  be  wanting  Regent-Murrays 
enough  to  shrug  their  shoulders,  and  say,  "A  devout  imagi- 
nation ! "  We  will  praise  the  Hero-priest  rather,  who  does 
what  is  in  him  to  bring  them  in  ;  and  wears  out,  in  toil,  cal- 
umny, contradiction,  a  noble  life,  to  make  a  God's  Kingdom 
of  this  Earth.     The  Earth  will  not  become  too  godlike ! 


LIBRARY 
OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN-  OP  LETTERS.  ift 


LECTURE   V. 

THE   HERO   AS   MAN   OF    LETTERS.     JOHNSON,    ROUSSEAU, 
BURNS. 


H 


[Tuesday,  iqth  May,  1840.] 

ERO-GODS,  Prophets,  Poets,  Priests,  are  forms  of 
Heroism  that  belong  to  the  old  ages,  make  their 
appearance  in  the  remotest  times;  some  of  them  have  ceased 
to  be  possible  long  since,  and  cannot  any  more  show  them- 
selves in  this  world.  The  Hero  as  Man  of  Letters,  again,  of 
which  class  we  are  to  speak  to-day,  is  altogether  a  product 
of  these  new  ages ;  and  so  long  as  the  wondrous  art  of 
Writing,  or  of  Ready-writing  which  we  call  Printing,  sub- 
sists, he  may  be  expected  to  continue,  as  one  of  the  main 
forms  of  Heroism  for  all  future  ages.  He  is,  in  various 
respects,  a  very  singular  phenomenon. 

He  is  new,  I  say ;  he  has  hardly  lasted  above  a  century  in 
the  world  yet.  Never,  till  about  a  hundred  years  ago,  was 
there  seen  any  figure  of  a  Great  Soul  living  apart  in  that 
anomalous  manner ;  endeavoring  to  speak  forth  the  inspira- 
tion that  was  in  him  by  Printed  Books,  and  find  place  and  sub- 
sistence by  what  the  world  would  please  to  give  him  for  doing 
that.  Much  had  been  sold  and  bought,  and  left  to  make  its 
own  bargain  in  the  marketplace ;  but  the  inspired  wisdom  of 
a  Heroic  Soul  never  till  then,  in  that  naked  manner.  He, 
with  his  copy-rights  and  copy-wrongs,  in  his  squalid  garret, 


\*]±  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

in  his  rusty  coat ;  ruling  (for  this  is  what  he  does),  from  his 
grave,  after  death,  whole  nations  and  generations  who  would, 
or  would  not,  give  him  bread  while  living,  —  is  a  rather 
curious  spectacle !  Few  shapes  of  Heroism  can  be  more 
unexpected. 

Alas,  the  Hero  from  of  old  has  had  to  cramp  himself  into 
strange  shapes :  the  world  knows  not  well  at  any  time  what 
to  do  with  him,  so  foreign  is  his  aspect  in  the  world!  It 
seemed  absurd  to  us,  that  men,  in  their  rude  admiration, 
should  take  some  wise  great  Odin  for  a  god,  and  worship 
him  as  such  ;  some  wise  great  Mahomet  for  one  god-inspired, 
and  religiously  follow  his  Law  for  twelve  centuries  :  but 
that  a  wise  great  Johnson,  a  Burns,  a  Rousseau,  should  be 
taken  for  some  idle  nondescript,  extant  in  the  world  to  amuse 
idleness,  and  have  a  few  coins  and  applauses  thrown  him, 
that  he  might  live  thereby ;  this  perhaps,  as  before  hinted, 
will  one  day  seem  a  still  absurder  phasis  of  things !  —  Mean- 
while, since  it  is  the  spiritual  always  that  determines  the 
material,  this  same  Man-of-Letters  Hero  must  be  regarded  as 
our  most  important  modern  person.  He,  such  as  he  may  be, 
is  the  soul  of  all.  What  he  teaches,  the  whole  world  will  do 
and  make.  The  world's  manner  of  dealing  with  him  is  the 
most  significant  feature  of  the  world's  general  position. 
Looking  well  at  his  life,  we  may  get  a  glance,  as  deep  as  is 
readily  possible  for  us,  into  the  life  of  those  singular  centu- 
ries which  have  produced  him,  in  which  we  ourselves  live  and 
work. 

There  are  genuine  Men  of  Letters,  and  not  genuine ;  as 
in  every  kind  there  is  a  genuine  and  a  spurious.  If  Hero  be 
taken  to  mean  genuine,  then  I  say  the  Hero  as  Man  of 
Letters  will  be  found  discharging  a  function  for  us  which  is 
ever  honorable,  ever  the  highest;  and  was  once  well  known 
to  be  the  highest.     He  is  uttering  forth,  in  such  way  as  he 


THE  HERO   AS  MAN  OE  LETTERS.  1 73 

has,  the  inspired  soul  of  him ;  all  that  a  man,  in  any  case, 
can  do.  I  say  inspired;  for  what  we  call  "originality/' 
"sincerity,"  "genius,"  the  heroic  quality  we  have  no  good 
name  for,  signifies  that.  The  Hero  is  he  who  lives  in  the 
inward  sphere  of  things,  in  the  True,  Divine  and  Eternal, 
which  exists  always,  unseen  to  most,  under  the  Temporary, 
Trivial :  his  being  is  in  that ;  he  declares  that  abroad,  by 
act  or  speech  as  it  may  be,  in  declaring  himself  abroad. 
His  life,  as  we  said  before,  is  a  piece  of  the  everlasting  heart 
of  Nature  herself :  all  men's  life  is,  —  but  the  weak  many 
know  not  the  fact,  and  are  untrue  to  it,  in  most  times ;  the 
strong  few  are  strong,  heroic,  perennial,  because  it  cannot 
be  hidden  from  them.  The  Man  of  Letters,  like  every  Hero, 
is  there  to  proclaim  this  in  such  sort  as  he  can.  Intrinsi- 
cally it  is  the  same  function  which  the  old  generations  named 
a  man  Prophet,  Priest,  Divinity,  for  doing;  which  all  manner 
of  Heroes,  by  speech  or  by  act,  are  sent  into  the  world  to  do. 
Fichte  the  German  Philosopher  delivered,  some  forty 
years  ago  at  Erlangen,  a  highly  remarkable  Course  of  Lec- 
tures on  this  subject :  "  Ueber  das  Wesen  des  Gelehrten,  On 
the  Nature  of  the  Literary  Man."  Fichte,  in  conformity 
with  the  Transcendental  Philosophy,  of  which  he  was  a 
distinguished  teacher,  declares  first :  That  all  things  which 
we  see  or  work  with  in  this  Earth,  especially  we  ourselves 
and  all  persons,  are  as  a  kind  of  vesture  or  sensuous  Appear- 
ance :  that  under  all  there  lies,  as  the  essence  of  them,  what, 
he  calls  the  "  Divine  Idea  of  the  World  ;  "  this  is  the  Reality 
which  "  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  Appearance."  To  the  mass 
of  men  no  such  Divine  Idea  is  recognizable  in  the  world ; 
they  live  merely,  says  Fichte,  among  the  superficialities, 
practicalities  and  shows  of  the  world,  not  dreaming  that 
there  is  any  thing  divine  under  them.  But  the  Man  of 
fetters  i§  sent  hither  specially  that  he   may  discern  for 


174  LECTURES  OX  HEROES. 

himself,  and  make  manifest  to  us,  this  same  Divine  Idea: 
in  every  new  generation  it  will  manifest  itself  in  a  new 
dialect :  and  he  is  there  for  the  purpose  of  doing  that.  Such 
is  Fichte's  phraseology;  with  which  we  need  not  quarrel. 
It  is  his  way  of  naming  what  I  here,  by  other  words,  am 
striving  imperfectly  to  name  ;  what  there  is  at  present  no 
name  for:  The  unspeakable  Divine  Significance,  full  of 
splendor,  of  wonder  and  terror,  that  lies  in  the  being  of  every 
man,  of  every  thing,  —  the  Presence  of  the  God  who  made 
every  man  and  thing.  Mahomet  taught  this  in  his  dialect ; 
Odin  in  his :  it  is  the  thing  which  all  thinking  hearts,  in  one 
dialect  or  another,  are  here  to  teach. 

Fichte  calls  the  Man  of  Letters,  therefore,  a  Prophet,  or 
as  he  prefers  to  phrase  it,  a  Priest,  continually  unfolding 
the  Godlike  to  men :  Men  of  Letters  are  a  perpetual  Priest- 
hood, from  age  to  age,  teaching  all  men  that  a  God  is  still 
present  in  their  life;  that  all  "Appearance."  whatsoever 
we  see  in  the  world,  is  but  as  a  vesture  for  the  "  Divine 
Idea  of  the  World,"  for  "  that  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
Appearance."  In  the  true  Literary  Man  there  is  thus  ever, 
acknowledged  or  not  by  the  world,  a  sacredness :  he  is  the 
light  of  the  world;  the  world's  Priest: — guiding  it,  like  a 
sacred  Pillar  of  Fire,  in  its  dark  pilgrimage  through  the 
waste  of  Time.  Fichte  discriminates  with  sharp  zeal  the 
true  Literary  Man,  what  we  here  call  the  Hero  as  Man  of 
Letters,  from  multitudes  of  false  unheroic.  Whoever  lives 
not  wholly  in  this  Divine  Idea,  or  living  partially  in  it, 
struggles  not,  as  for  the  one  good,  to  live  wholly  in  it,  —  he 
is,  let  him  live  where  else  he  like,  in  what  pomps  and  pros- 
perities he  like,  no  Literary  Man;  he  is,  says  Fichte,  a 
u  Bungler,  Stumper"  Or  at  best,  if  he  belong  to  the  pro- 
saic provinces,  he  may  be  a"  Hodman  ; "  Fichte  even  calls 
him  elsewhere  a  "  Nonentity,"  and  has  in  short  no  mercy 


THE  HERO   AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  1 75 

for  him,  no  wish  that  he  should  continue  happy  among  us ! 
This  is  P^ichte^s  notion  of  the  Man  of  Letters.  It  means, 
in  its  own  form,  precisely  what  we  here  mean. 

In  this  point  of  view,  I  consider  that,  for  the  last  hundred 
years,  by  far  the  notablest  of  all  Literary  Men  is  Fichte's 
countryman,  Goethe.  To  that  man  too,  in  a  strange  way, 
there  was  given  what  we  may  call  a  life  in  the  Divine  Idea 
of  the  World ;  vision  of  the  inward  divine  mystery :  and 
strangely,  out  of  his  Books,  the  world  rises  imaged  once 
more  as  godlike,  the  workmanship  and  temple  of  a  God. 
Illuminated  all,  not  in  fierce  impure  fire-splendor  as  of 
Mahomet,  but  in  mild  celestial  radiance  ;  —  really  a  Proph- 
ecy in  these  most  unprophetic  times;  to  my  mind,  by  far 
the  greatest,  though  one  of  the  quietest,  among  all  the 
great  things  that  have  come  to  pass  in  them.  Our  chosen 
specimen  of  the  Hero  as  Literary  Man  would  be  this  Goethe. 
And  it  were  a  very  pleasant  plan  for  me  here  to  discourse 
of  his  heroism:  for  I  consider  him  to  be  a  true  Hero; 
heroic  in  what  he  said  and  did,  and  perhaps  still  more  in 
what  he  did  not  say  and  did  not  do ;  to  me  a  noble  spec- 
tacle: a  great  heroic  ancient  man,  speaking  and  keeping 
silence  as  an  ancient  Hero,  in  the  guise  of  a  most  modern, 
high-bred,  high-cultivated  Man  of  Letters !  We  have  had 
no  such  spectacle ;  no  man  capable  of  affording  such,  for 
the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

But  at  present,  such  is  the  general  state  of  knowledge 
about  Goethe,  it  were  worse  than  useless  to  attempt  speak- 
ing of  him  in  this  case.  Speak  as  I  might,  Goethe,  to  the 
great  majority  of  you,  would  remain  problematic,  vague ;  no 
impression  but  a  false  one  could  be  realized.  Him  we  must 
leave  to  future  times.  Johnson,  Burns,  Rousseau,  three 
great  figures  from  a  prior  time,  from  a  far  inferior  state  of 
circumstances,  will  suit  us  better  here,    Three  men  of  the 


I76  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Eighteenth  Century;  the  conditions  of  their  life  far  more 
resemble  what  those  of  ours  still  are  in  England,  than  what 
Goethe's  in  Germany  were.  Alas,  these  men  did  not  con- 
quer like  him  ;  they  fought  bravely,  and  fell.  They  were 
not  heroic  bringers  of  the  light,  but  heroic  seekers  of  it. 
They  lived  under  galling  conditions;  struggling  as  under 
mountains  of  impediment,  and  could  not  unfold  themselves 
into  clearness,  or  victorious  interpretation  of  that  "  Divine 
Idea."  It  is  rather  the  Tombs  of  three  Literary  Heroes  that 
I  have  to  show  you.  There  are  the  monumental  heaps, 
under  which  three  spiritual  giants  lie  buried.  Very  mourn- 
ful, but  also  great  and  full  of  interest  for  us.  We  will 
linger  by  them  for  a  while. 

Complaint  is  often  made,  in  these  times,  of  what  we  call 
the  disorganized  condition  of  society:  how  ill  many  arranged 
forces  of  society  fulfil  their  work ;  how  many  powerful  forces 
are  seen  working  in  a  wasteful,  chaotic,  altogether  unarranged 
manner.  It  is  too  just  a  complaint,  as  we  all  know.  But 
perhaps  if  we  look  at  this  of  Books  and  the  Writers  of 
Books,  we  shall  find  here,  as  it  were,  the  summary  of  all 
other  disorganization; — a  sort  of  heart,  from  which,  and  to 
which,  all  other  confusion  circulates  in  the  world  !  Consid- 
ering what  Book-writers  do  in  the  world,  and  what  the  world 
does  with  Book-writers,  I  should  say,  It  is  the  most  anoma- 
lous thing  the  world  at  present  has  to  show.  —  We  should 
get  into  a  sea  far  beyond  sounding,  did  we  attempt  to  give 
account  of  this :  but  we  must  glance  at  it  for  the  sake  of  our 
subject.  The  worst  element  in  the  life  of  these  three  Liter- 
ary Heroes  was,  that  they  found  their  business  and  position 
such  a  chaos.  On  the  beaten  road  there  is  tolerable  travel- 
ling ;  but  it  is  sore  work,  and  many  have  to  perish,  fashioning 
a  path  through  the  impassable.  1 


THE  HERO   AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  iyj 

Our  pious  Fathers,  feeling  well  what  importance  lay  in  the 
speaking  of  man  to  men,  founded  churches,  made  endow- 
ments, regulations ;  everywhere  in  the  civilized  world  there 
is  a  Pulpit,  environed  with  all  manner  of  complex  dignified 
appurtenances  and  furtherances,  that  therefrom  a  man  with 
the  tongue  may,  to  best  advantage,  address  his  fellow-men. 
They  felt  that  this  was  the  most  important  thing;  that  with- 
out this  there  was  no  good  thing.  It  is  a  right  pious  work, 
that  of  theirs ;  beautiful  to  behold  !  But  now  with  the  art  of 
Writing,  with  the  art  of  Printing,  a  total  change  has  come 
over  that  business.  The  Writer  of  a  Book,  is  not  he  a 
Preacher  preaching  not  to  this  parish  or  that,  on  this  day  or 
that,  but  to  all  men  in  all  times  and  places?  Surely  it  is  of 
the  last  importance  that  he  do  his  work  right,  whoever  do  it 
wrong; — that  the  eye  report  not  falsely,  for  then  all  the 
other  members  are  astray !  Well ;  how  he  may  do  his  work, 
whether  he  do  it  right  or  wrong,  or  do  it  at  all,  is  a  point 
which  no  man  in  the  world  has  taken  the  pains  to  think  of. 
To  a  certain  shopkeeper,  trying  to  get  some  money  for  his 
books,  if  lucky,  he  is  of  some  importance ;  to  no  other  man 
of  any.  Whence  he  came,  whither  he  is  bound,  by  what 
ways  he  arrived,  by  what  he  might  be  furthered  on  his  course, 
no  one  asks. '  He  is  an  accident  in  society.  He  wanders 
like  a  wild  Ishmaelite,  in  a  world  of  which  he  is  as  the  spirit- 
ual light,  either  the  guidance  or  the  misguidance  ! 

Certainly  the  Art  of  Writing  is  the  most  miraculous  of  all 
things  man  has  devised.  Odin's  Runes  were  the  first  form 
of  the  work  of  a  Hero ;  Books,  written  words,  are  still  mirac- 
ulous Runes,  the  latest  form  !  In  Books  lies  the  soul  of  the 
whole  Past  Time ;  the  articulate  audible  voice  of  the  Past, 
when  the  body  and  material  substance  of  it  has  altogether 
vanished  like  a  dream.  Mighty  fleets  and  armies,  harbors 
and  arsenals,  vast  cities,  high-domed,  many-engined,  —  they 


178  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

are  precious,  great :  but  what  do  they  become  ?  Agamemnon, 
the  many  Agamemnons,  Pericleses,  and  their  Greece ;  all  is 
gone  now  to  some  ruined  fragments,  dumb  mournful  wrecks 
and  blocks :  but  the  Books  of  Greece !  There  Greece,  to 
every  thinker,  still  very  literally  lives  ;  can  be  called  up  again 
into  life.  No  magic  Rune  is  stranger  than  a  Book.  All  that 
Mankind  has  done,  thought,  gained  or  been :  it  is  lying  as 
.in  magic  preservation  in  the  pages  of  Books.  They  are  the 
chosen  possession  of  men. 

Do  not  Books  still  accomplish  miracles,  as  Runes  were 
fabled  to  do?  They  persuade  men.  Not  the  wretchedest 
circulating-library  novel,  which  foolish  girls  thumb  and  con 
in  remote  villages,  but  will  help  to  regulate  the  actual  prac- 
tical weddings  and  households  of  those  foolish  girls.  So 
"  Celia  "  felt,  so  "  Clifford  "  acted :  the  foolish  Theorem  of 
Life,  stamped  into  those  young  brains,  comes  out  as  a  solid 
Practice  one  day.  Consider  whether  any  Rune  in  the  wild- 
est imagination  of  Mythologist  ever  did  such  wonders  as,  on 
the  actual  firm  Earth,  some  Books  have  done  !  What  built 
St.  Paul's  Cathedral?  Look  at  the  heart  of  the  matter,  it 
was  that  divine  Hebrew  Book,  —  the  word  partly  of  the  man 
Moses,  an  outlaw  tending  his  Midianitish  herds,  four  thou- 
sand years  ago,  in  the  wildernesses  of  Sinai !  It  is  the  stran- 
gest of  things,  yet  nothing  is  truer.  With  the  art  of  Writing, 
of  which  Printing  is  a  simple,  an  inevitable  and  comparatively 
insignificant  corollary,  the  true  reign  of  miracles  for  mankind 
commenced.  It  related,  with  a  wondrous  new  contiguity 
and  perpetual  closeness,  the  Past  and  Distant  with  the  Pres- 
ent in  time  and  place ;  all  times  and  all  places  with  this  our 
actual  Here  and  Now.  All  things  were  altered  for  men : 
all  modes  of  important  work  of  men :  teaching,  preaching, 
governing,  and  all  else. 

To  look  at   Teaching,  for  instance.     Universities  are  a 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  1 79 

notable,  respectable  product  of  the  modern  ages.  Their 
existence  too  is  modified,  to  the  very  basis  of  it,  by  the 
existence  of  Books.  Universities  arose  while  there  were 
yet  no  Books  procurable ;  while  a  man,  for  a  single  Book, 
had  to  giye  an  estate  of  land.  That,  in  those  circumstances, 
when  a  man  had  some  knowledge  to  communicate,  he 
should  do  it  by  gathering  the  learners  round  him,  face  to 
face,  was  a  necessity  for  him.  If  you  wanted  to  know  what 
Abelard  knew,  you  must  go  and  listen  to  Abelard.  Thou- 
sands, as  many  as  thirty  thousand,  went  to  hear  Abelard  and 
that  metaphysical  theology  of  his.  And  now  for  any  other 
teacher  who  had  also  something  of  his  own  to  teach,  there 
was  a  great  convenience  opened :  so  many  thousands  eager 
to  learn  were  already  assembled  yonder;  of  all  places  the 
best  place  for  him  was  that.  For  any  third  teacher  it  was 
better  still ;  and  grew  ever  the  better,  the  more  teachers 
there  came.  It  only  needed  now  that  the  King  took  notice 
of  this  new  phenomenon  ;  combined  or  agglomerated  the 
various  schools  into  one  school ;  gave  it  edifices,  privileges, 
encouragements,  and  named  it  Universitas,  or  School  of  all 
Sciences  :  the  University  of  Paris,  in  its  essential  characters, 
was  there.  The  model  of  all  subsequent  Universities ; 
which  down  even  to  these  days,  for  six  centuries  now,  have 
gone  on  to  found  themselves.  Such,  I  conceive,  was  the 
origin  of  Universities. 

It  is  clear,  however,  that  with  this  simple  circumstance, 
facility  of  getting  Books,  the  whole  conditions  of  the  busi- 
ness from  top  to  bottom  were  changed.  Once  invent  Print- 
ing, you  metamorphosed  all  Universities,  or  superseded 
them !  The  Teacher  needed  not  now  to  gather  men  person- 
ally round  him,  that  he  might  speak  to  them  what  he  knew : 
print  it  in  a  Book,  and  all  learners  far  and  wide,  for  a  trifle, 
had  it  each  at  his  own  fireside,  much  more  effectually  to 


I  So  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

learn  it !  —  Doubtless  there  is  still  peculiar  virtue  in  Speech  ; 
even  writers  of  Books  may  still,  in  some  circumstances,  find 
it  convenient  to  speak  also,  —  witness  our  present  meeting 
here !  There  is,  one  would  say,  and  must  ever  remain  while 
man  has  a  tongue,  a  distinct  province  for  Speech  as  well  as 
for  Writing  and  Printing.  In  regard  to  all  things  this  must 
remain ;  to  Universities  among  others.  But  the  limits  of 
the  two  have  nowhere  yet  been  pointed  out,  ascertained; 
much  less  put  in  practice :  the  University  which  would  com- 
pletely take  in  that  great  new  fact,  of  the  existence  of 
Printed  Books,  and  stand  on  a  clear  footing  for  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  as  the  Paris  one  did  for  the  Thirteenth,  has 
not  yet  come  into  existence.  If  we  think  of  it,  all  that  a 
University,  or  final  highest  School  can  do  for  us,  is  still  but 
what  the  first  School  began  doing,  —  teach  us  to  read.  We 
learn  to  read,  in  various  languages,  in  various  sciences ;  we 
learn  the  alphabet  and  letters  of  all  manner  of  Books.  But 
the  place  where  we  are  to  get  knowledge,  even  theoretic 
knowledge,  is  the  Books  themselves!  It  depends  on  what 
we  read,  after  all  manner  of  Professors  have  done  their  best 
for  us.  The  true  University  of  these  days  is  a  Collection 
of  Books. 

But  to  the  Church  itself,  as  I  hinted  already,  all  is 
changed,  in  its  preaching,  in  its  working,  by  the  introduction 
of  Books.  The  Church  is  the  working  recognized  Union  of 
our  Priests  or  Prophets,  of  those  who  by  wise  teaching 
guide  the  souls  of  men.  While  there  was  no  Writing,  even 
while  there  was  no  Easy-writing  or  Printing,  the  preaching 
of  the  voice  was  the  natural  sole  method  of  performing  this. 
But  now  with  Books  !  —  He  that  can  write  a  true  Book,  to 
persuade  England,  is  not  he  the  Bishop  and  Archbishop, 
the  Primate  of  England  and  of  All  England  ?  I  many  a  time 
sav,  the  writers  of  Newspapers,  Pamphlets,  Poems,  Books, 


THE  HERO   AS  MAX  OE  LETTERS.  l8l 

these  are  the  real  working  effective  Church  of  a  modern 
country.  Nay  not  only  our  preaching,  but  even  our  wor- 
ship, is  not  it  too  accomplished  by  means  of  Printed  Books  ? 
The  noble  sentiment  which  a  gifted  soul  has  clothed  for  us 
in  melodious  words,  which  brings  melody  into  our  hearts, — 
is  not  this  essentially,  if  we  will  understand  it,  of  the  nature 
of  worship?  There  are  many,  in  all  countries,  who,  in  this 
confused  time,  have  no  other  method  of  worship.  He  who, 
in  any  way,  shows  us  better  than  we  knew  before  that  a 
lily  of  the  fields  is  beautiful,  does  he  not  show  it  us  as  an 
effluence  of  the  Fountain  of  all  Beauty ;  as  the  handwriting, 
made  visible  there,  of  the  great  Maker  of  the  Universe  ? 
He  has  sung  for  us,  made  us  sing  with  him,  a  little  verse  of 
a  sacred  Psalm.  Essentially  so.  How  much  more  he  who 
sings,  who  says,  or  in  any  way  brings  home  to  our  heart  the 
noble  doings,  feelings,  darings  and  endurances  of  a  brother 
man  !  He  has  verily  touched  our  hearts  as  with  a  live  coal 
from  the  altar.  Perhaps  there  is  no  worship  more  authentic. 
Literature,  so  far  as  it  is  Literature,  is  an  "  apocalypse  of 
Nature,"  a  revealing  of  the  "open  secret."  It  may  well 
enough  be  named,  in  Fichte's  style,  a  "continuous  revela- 
tion" of  the  Godlike  in  the  Terrestrial  and  Common.  The 
Godlike  does  ever,  in  very  truth,  endure  there ;  is  brought 
out,  now  in  this  dialect,  now  in  that,  with  various  degrees 
of  clearness :  all  true  gifted  Singers  and  Speakers  are, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  doing  so.  The  dark  stormful 
indignation  of  a  Byron,  so  wayward  and  perverse,  may  have 
touches  of  it;  nay  the  withered  mockery  of  a  French  sceptic, 
—  his  mockery  of  the  False,  a  love  and  worship  of  the  True. 
How  much  more  the  sphere-harmony  of  a  Shakspeare,  of  a 
Goethe ;  the  cathedral-music  of  a  Milton !  They  are  some- 
thing too,  those  humble  genuine  lark-notes  of  a  Burns, — 
skylark,  starting  from  the  humble  furrow,  far  overhead  into 


1 82  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

the  blue  depths,  and  singing  to  us  so  genuinely  there !  For 
all  true  singing  is  of  the  nature  of  worship;  as  indeed  all 
true  working  may  be  said  to  be,  —  whereof  such  singing 
is  but  the  record,  and  fit  melodious  representation,  to  us. 
Fragments  of  a  real  "  Church  Liturgy "  and  "  Body  of 
Homilies,"  strangely  disguised  from  the  common  eye,  are 
to  be  found  weltering  in  that  huge  froth-ocean  of  Printed 
Speech  we  loosely  call  Literature  !  Books  are  our  Church 
too. 

Or  turning  now  to  the  Government  of  men.  Witenage- 
mote,  old  Parliament,  was  a  great  thing.  The  affairs  of  the 
nation  were  there  deliberated  and  decided  ;  what  we  were  to 
do.  as  a  nation.  But  does  not,  though  the  name  Parliament 
subsists,  the  parliamentary  debate  go  on  now,  everywhere 
and  at  all  times,  in  a  far  more  comprehensive  way,  out 
of  Parliament  altogether?  Burke  said  there  were  Three 
Estates  in  Parliament;  but,  in  the  Reporters' Gallery  yonder, 
there  sat  a  Fourth  Estate  more  important  far  than  they  all. 
It  is  not  a  figure  of  speech,  or  a  witty  saying;  it  is  a  literal 
fact,  —  very  momentous  to  us  in  these  times.  Literature  is 
our  Parliament  too.  Printing,  which  comes  necessarily  out 
of  Writing,  I  say  often,  is  equivalent  to  Democracy  ■  invent 
Writing,  Democracy  is  inevitable.  Writing  brings  Printing; 
brings  universal  every-day  extempore  Printing,  as  we  see  at 
present.  Whoever  can  speak,  speaking  now  to  the  whole 
nation,  becomes  a  power,  a  branch  of  government,  with 
inalienable  weight  in  law-making,  in  all  acts  of  authority.  It 
matters  not  what  rank  he  has,  what  revenues  or  garnitures : 
the  requisite  thing  is,  that  he  have  a  tongue  which  others 
will  listen  to ;  this  and  nothing  more  is  requisite.  The 
nation  is  governed  by  all  that  has  tongue  in  the  nation : 
Democracy  is  virtually  there.  Add  only,  that  whatsoever 
power  exists  will  have  itself,  by  and  by,  organized  ;  working 


THE  HERO  AS  MAAT  OF  LETTERS.  1 83 

secretly  under  bandages,  obscurations,  obstructions,  it  will 
never  rest  till  it  get  to  work  free,  unencumbered,  visible  to 
all.  Democracy  virtually  extant  will  insist  on  becoming 
palpably  extant. 

On  all  sides,  are  we  not  driven  to  the  conclusion  that,  of 
the  things  which  man  can  do  or  make  here  below,  by  far  the 
most  momentous,  wonderful  and  worthy  are  the  things  we 
call  Books  !  Those  poor  bits  of  rag-paper  with  black  ink  on 
them; — from  the  Daily  Newspaper  to  the  sacred  Hebrew 
Book,  what  have  they  not  done,  what  are  they  not  doing !  — : 
For  indeed,  whatever  be  the  outward  form  of  the  thing  (bits 
of  paper,  as  we  say,  and  black  ink),  is  it  not  verily,  at  bottom, 
the  highest  act  of  man's  faculty  that  produces  a  Book  ?  It 
is  the  Thought  of  man  ;  the  true  thaumaturgic  virtue ;  by 
which  man  works  all  things  whatsoever.  All  that  he  does, 
and  brings  to  pass,  is  the  vesture  of  a  Thought.  This 
London  City,  with  all  its  houses,  palaces,  steam-engines, 
cathedrals,  and  huge  immeasurable  traffic  and  tumult,  what 
is  it  but  a  Thought,  but  millions  of  Thoughts  made  into  One; 
—  a  huge  immeasurable  Spirit  of  a  Thought,  embodied  in 
brick,  in  iron,  smoke,  dust,  Palaces,  Parliaments,  Hackney 
Coaches,  Katherine  Docks,  and  the  rest  of  it !  Not  a  brick 
was  made  but  some  man  had  to  think  of  the  making  of  that 
brick.  —  The  thing  we  called  "  bits  of  paper  with  traces  of 
black  ink,"  is  the  purest  embodiment  a  Thought  of  man  can 
have.     No  wonder  it  is,  in  all  ways,  the  activest  and  noblest. 

All  this,  of  the  importance  and  supreme  importance  of  the 
Man  of  Letters  in  modern  Society,  and  how  the  Press  is  to 
such  a  degree  superseding  the  Pulpit,  the  Senate,  the  Senates 
Academicus  and  much  else,  has  been  admitted  for  a  good 
while;  and  recognized  often  enough,  in  late  times,  with  a 
sort  of  sentimental  triumph  and  wonderment.  It  seems  to 
me,  the  Sentimental  by  and  by  will  have  to  give  place  to  the 


1S4  LECTURES   ON  HEROES. 

Practical.  If  Men  of  Letters  a?'e  so  incalculably  influential, 
actually  performing  such  work  for  us  from  age  to  age,  and 
even  from  day  to  day,  then  I  think  we  may  conclude  that 
Men  of  Letters  will  not  always  wander  like  unrecognized 
unregulated  Ishmaelites  among  us  !  Whatsoever  thing,  as  I 
said  above,  has  virtual  unnoticed  power  will  cast  off  its  wrap- 
pages, bandages,  and  step  forth  one  day  with  palpably  artic- 
ulated, universally  visible  power.  That  one  man  wear  the 
clothes,  and  take  the  wages,  of  a  function  which  is  done  by 
quite  another :  there  can  be  no  profit  in  this  ;  this  is  not  right, 
it  is  wrong.  And  yet,  alas,  the  making  of  it  right,  —  what  a 
business,  for  long  times  to  come  !  Sure  enough,  this  that 
we  call  Organization  of  the  Literary  Guild  is  still  a  great-way 
off,  incumbered  with  all  manner  of  complexities.  If  you 
asked  me  what  were  the  best  possible  organization  for  the 
Men  of  Letters  in  modern  society ;  the  arrangement  of  fur- 
therance and  regulation,  grounded  the  most  accurately  on  the 
actual  facts  of  their  position  and  of  the  world's  position,  —  I 
should  beg  to  say  that  the  problem  far  exceeded  my  faculty ! 
It  is  not  one  man's  faculty;  it  is  that  of  many  successive  men 
turned  earnestly  upon  it,  that  will  bring  out  even  an  approxi- 
mate solution.  What  the  best  arrangement  were,  none  of  us 
could  say.  But  if  you  ask,  Which  is  the  worst  ?  I  answer : 
This  which  we  now  have,  that  Chaos  should  sit  umpire  in  it; 
this  is  the  worst.  To  the  best,  or  any  good  one,  there  is  yet 
a  long  way. 

One  remark  I  must  not  omit,  That  royal  or  parliamentary 
grants  of  money  are  by  no  means  the  chief  thing  wanted ! 
To  give  our  Men  of  Letters  stipends,  endowments  and  all 
furtherance  of  cash,  will  do  little  towards  the  business.  On 
the  whole,  one  is  weary  of  hearing  about  the  omnipotence  of 
money.  I  will  say  rather  that,  for  a  genuine  man,  it  is  no 
evil  to  be  poor ;  that  there  ought  to  be  Literary  Men  poor, 


THE  HERO  AS  MAM  OE  LETTERS.  1 85 

—  to  show  whether  they  are  genuine  or  not!  Mendicant 
Orders,  bodies  of  good  men  doomed  to  beg,  were  instituted 
in  the  Christian  Church ;  a  most  natural  and  even  neces- 
sary development  of  the  spirit  of  Christianity.  It  was  itself 
founded  on  Poverty,  on  Sorrow,  Contradiction,  Crucifixion, 
every  species  of  worldly  Distress  and  Degradation.  We  may 
say,  that  he  who  has  not  known  those  things,  and  learned 
from  them  the  priceless  lessons  they  have  to  teach,  has 
missed  a  good  opportunity  of  schooling.  To  beg,  and  go 
barefoot,  in  coarse  woollen  cloak  with  a  rope  round  your  loins, 
and  be  despised  of  all  the  world,  was  no  beautiful  business; 

—  nor  an  honorable  one  in  any  eye,  till  the  nobleness  of 
those  who  did  so  had  made  it  honored  of  some ! 

Begging  is  not  in  our  course  at  the  present  time :  but  for 
the  rest  of  it,  who  will  say  that  a  Johnson  is  not  perhaps  the 
better  for  being  poor?  It  is  needful  for  him,  at  all  rates,  to 
know  that  outward  profit,  that  success  of  any  kind,  is  not  the 
goal  he  has  to  aim  at.  Pride,  vanity,  ill-conditioned  egoism 
of  all  sorts,  are  bred  in  his  heart,  as  in  every  heart ;  need, 
above  all,  to  be  cast  out  of  his  heart,  —  to  be,  with  whatever 
pangs,  torn  out  of  it,  cast  forth  from  it,  as  a  thing  worthless. 
Byron,  born  rich  and  noble,  made  out  even  less  than  Burns, 
poor  and  plebeian.  Who  knows  but,  in  that  same  "best  pos- 
sible organization  "  as  yet  far  off,  Poverty  may  still  enter  as 
an  important  element?  What  if  our  Men  of  Letters,  men 
setting  up  to  be  Spiritual  Heroes,  were  still  then,  as  they 
now  are,  a  kind  of  "involuntary  monastic  order;"  bound 
still  to  this  same  ugly  Poverty,  —  till  they  had  tried  what 
was  in  it  too,  till  they  had  learned  to  make  it  too  do  for  them  ! 
Money,  in  truth,  can  do  much,  but  it  cannot  do  all.  We 
must  know  the  province  of  it,  and  confine  it  there ;  and  even 
spurn  it  back,  when  it  wishes  to  get  farther. 

Besides,  were  the  money-furtherances,  the  proper  season 


1 86  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

for  them,  the  fit  assigner  of  them,  all  settled,  —  how  is  the 
Burns  to  be  recognized  that  merits  these  ?  He  must  pass 
through  the  ordeal,  and  prove  himself.  This  ordeal ;  this 
wild  welter  of  a  chaos  which  is  called  Literary  Life  :  this 
too  is  a  kind  of  ordeal !  There  is  clear  truth  in  the  idea 
that  a  struggle  from  the  lower  classes  of  society,  towards 
the  upper  regions  and  rewards  of  society,  must  ever  con- 
tinue. Strong  men  are  born  there,  who  ought  to  stand  else- 
where than  there.  The  manifold,  inextricably  complex, 
universal  struggle  of  these  constitutes,  and  must  constitute, 
what  is  called  the  progress  of  society.  For  Men  of  Letters, 
as  for  all  other  sorts  of  men.  How  to  regulate  that  struggle  ? 
There  is  the  whole  question.  To  leave  it  as  it  is,  at  the 
mercy  of  blind  Chance  ;  a  whirl  of  distracted  atoms,  one  can- 
celling the  other;  one  of  the  thousand  arriving  saved,  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  lost  by  the  way;  your  royal  Johnson 
languishing  inactive  in  garrets,  or  harnessed  to  the  yoke  of 
Printer  Cave  ;  your  Burns  dying  broken-hearted  as  a  Gauger ; 
your  Rousseau  driven  into  mad  exasperation,  kindling  French 
Revolutions  by  his  paradoxes :  this,  as  we  said,  is  clearly 
enough  the  worst  regulation.  The  best,  alas,  is  far  from  us  ! 
And  yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  it  is  coming  ;  advan- 
cing on  us,  as  yet  hidden  in  the  bosom  of  centuries  :  this  is 
a  prophecy  one  can  risk.  For  so  soon  as  men  get  to  discern 
the  importance  of  a  thing,  they  do  infallibly  set  about  arran- 
ging it,  facilitating,  forwarding  it ;  and  rest  not  till,  in  some 
approximate  degree,  they  have  accomplished  that.  I  say,  of 
all  Priesthoods,  Aristocracies,  Governing  Classes,  at  present 
extant  in  the  world,  there  is  no  class  comparable  for  impor- 
tance to  that  Priesthood  of  the  Writers  of  Books.  This  is  a 
fact  which  he  who  runs  may  read,  —  and  draw  inferences 
from.  "Literature  will  take  care  of  itself,"  answered  Mr. 
Pitt,  when  applied  to  for  some  help  for  Burns.    "  Yes,"  adds 


THE  HEkO  AS  A/A  AT  OE  LETTERS.         1%7 

Mr.  Southey,  "it  will  take  care  of  itself;  and  of  you  too,  if 
you  do  not  look  to  it !  " 

The  result  to  individual  Men  of  Letters  is  not  the  momen- 
tous one ;  they  are  but  individuals,  an  infinitesimal  fraction 
of  the  great  body  ;  they  can  struggle  on,  and  live  or  else  die, 
as  they  have  been  wont.  But  it  deeply  concerns  the  whole 
society,  whether  it  will  set  its  light  on  high  places,  to  walk 
thereby ;  or  trample  it  under  foot,  and  scatter  it  in  all  ways 
of  wild  waste  (not  without  conflagration),  as  heretofore  ! 
Light  is  the  one  thing  wanted  for  the  world.  Put  wisdom  in 
the  head  of  the  world,  the  world  will  fight  its  battle  victo- 
riously, and  be  the  best  world  man  can  make  it.  I  call  this 
anomaly  of- a  disorganic  Literary  Class  the  heart  of  all  other 
anomalies,  at  once  product  and  parent ;  some  good  arrange- 
ment for  that  would  be  as  the  fiunctum  saliens  of  a  new 
vitality  and  just  arrangement  for  all.  Already,  in  some 
European  countries,  in  France,  in  Prussia,  one  traces  some 
beginnings  of  an  arrangement  for  the  Literary  Class  ;  indi- 
cating the  gradual  possibility  of  such.  I  believe  that  it  is 
possible ;  that  it  will  have  to  be  possible. 

By  far  the  most  interesting  fact  I  hear  about  the  Chinese 
is  one  on  which  we  cannot  arrive  at  clearness,  but  which 
excites  endless  curiosity  even  in  the  dim  state  :  this  namely, 
that  they  do  attempt  to  make  their  Men  of  Letters  their 
Governors  !  It  would  be  rash  to  say,  one  understood  how 
this  was  done,  or  with  what  degree  of  success  it  was  done. 
All  such  things  must  be  very  ««successful;  yet  a  small  degree 
of  success  is  precious;  the  very  attempt  how  precious! 
There  does  seem  to  be,  all  over  China,  a  more  or  less  active 
search  everywhere  to  discover  the  men  of  talent  that  grow  up 
in  the  young  generation.  Schools  there  are  for  every  one  : 
a  foolish  sort  of  training,  yet  still  a  sort.  The  youths  who 
distinguish  themselves  in  the  lower  school  are   promoted 


1 88  LECTURES  OX  HEROES. 

into  favorable  stations  in  the  higher,  that  they  may  still 
more  distinguish  themselves,  —  forward  and  forward :  it 
appears  to  be  out  of  these  that  the  Official  Persons  and 
incipient  Governors  are  taken.  These  are  they  whom  they 
try  first,  whether  they  can  govern  or  not.  And  surely  with 
the  best  hope  :  for  they  are  the  men  that  have  already  shown 
intellect.  Try  them :  they  have  not  governed  or  adminis- 
tered as  yet;  perhaps  they  cannot;  but  there  is  no  doubt 
they  have  some  Understanding,  —  without  which  no  man 
can  !  Neither  is  Understanding  a  tool,  as  we  are  too  apt  to 
figure ;  u  it  is  a  hand  which  can  handle  any  tool."  Try 
these  men  :  they  are  of  all  others  the  best  worth  trying.  — 
Surely  there  is  no  kind  of  government,  constitution,  revolu- 
tion, social  apparatus  or  arrangement,  that  I  know  of  in 
this  world,  so  promising  to  one's  scientific  curiosity  as  this. 
The  man  of  intellect  at  the  top  of  affairs  :  this  is  the  aim  of 
all  constitutions  and  revolutions,  if  they  have  any  aim.  For 
the  man  of  true  intellect,  as  I  assert  and  believe  always,  is 
the  noblehearted  man  withal,  the  true,  just,  humane  and 
valiant  man.  Get  him  for  a  governor,  all  is  got ;  fail  to  get 
him,  though  you  had  Constitutions  plentiful  as  blackberries, 
and  a  Parliament  in  every  village,  there  is  nothing  yet  got ! 

These  things  look  strange,  truly  ;  and  are  not  such  as  we 
commonly  speculate  upon.  But  we  are  fallen  into  strange 
times ;  these  things  will  require  to  be  speculated  upon ;  to 
be  rendered  practicable,  to  be  in  some  way  put  in  practice. 
These,  and  many  others.  On  all  hands  of  us,  there  is  the 
announcement,  audible  enough,  that  the  old  Empire  of  Rou- 
tine has  ended;  that  to  say  a  thing  has  long  been,  is  no 
reason  for  its  continuing  to  be.  The  things  which  have 
been  are  fallen  into  decay,  are  fallen  into  incompetence; 
large  masses  of  mankind,  in  every  society  of  our  Europe, 
are  no  longer  capable  of  living  at  all  by  the  things  which 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  1 89 

have  been.  When  millions  of  men  can  no  longer  by  their 
utmost  exertion  gain  food  for  themselves,  and  "the  third 
man  for  thirty-six  weeks  each  year  is  short  of  third-rate 
potatoes,"  the  things  which  have  been  must  decidedly  pre- 
pare to  alter  themselves !  —  I  will  now  quit  this  of  the 
organization  of  Men  of  Letters. 

Alas,  the  evil  that  pressed  heaviest  on  those  Literary 
Heroes  of  ours  was  not  the  want  of  organization  for  Men 
of  Letters,  but  a  far  deeper  one ;  out  of  which,  indeed,  this 
and  so  many  other  evils  for  the  Literary  Man,  and  for  all 
men,  had,  as  from  their  fountain,  taken  rise.  That  our 
Hero  as  Man  of  Letters  had  to  travel  without  highway, 
companionless,  through  an  inorganic  chaos, — and  to  leave 
his  own  life  and  faculty  lying  there,  as  a  partial  contribution 
towards  pushing  some  highway  through  it :  this,  had  not  his 
faculty  itself  been  so  perverted  and  paralyzed,  he  might  have 
put  up  with,  might  have  considered  to  be  but  the  common 
lot  of  Heroes.  His  fatal  misery  was  the  spiritual  paralysis, 
so  we  may  name  it,  of  the  Age  in  which  his  life  lay;  whereby 
his  life  too,  do  what  he  might,  was  half  paralyzed  !  The 
Eighteenth  was  a  Sceptical  Century;  in  which  little  word 
there  is  a  whole  Pandora's  Box  of  miseries.  Scepticism 
means  not  intellectual  Doubt  alone,  but  moral  Doubt;  all 
sorts  of  /^fidelity,  insincerity,  spiritual  paralysis.  Perhaps, 
in  few  centuries  that  one  could  specify  since  the  world 
began,  was  a  life  of  Heroism  more  difficult  for  a  man. 
That  was  not  an  age  of  Faith,  —  an  age  of  Heroes!  The 
very  possibility  of  Heroism  had  been,  as  it  were,  formally 
abnegated  in  the  minds  of  all.  Heroism  was  gone  forever; 
Triviality,  Formulism  and  Commonplace  were  come  forever. 
The  "age  of  miracles"  had  been,  or  perhaps  had  not  been; 
but  it  was  not  any  longer.     An  effete  world ;  wherein  Won- 


I9O  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

der,  Greatness,  Godhood,  could  not  now  dwell;  —  in   one 
word,  a  godless  world  ! 

How  mean,  dwarfish,  are  their  ways  of  thinking,  in  this 
time,  —  compared  not  with  the  Christian  Shakspeares  and 
Miltons,  but  with  the  old  Pagan  Skalds,  with  any  species 
of  believing  men!  The  living  Tree  Igdrasil,  with  the 
melodious  prophetic  waving  of  its  world-wide  boughs,  deep- 
rooted  as  Hela,  has  died  out  into  the  clanking  of  a  World- 
Machine.  "Tree"  and  "Machine:"  contrast  these  two 
things.  I,  for  my  share,  declare  the  world  to  be  no  machine! 
I  say  that  it  does  not  go  by  wheel-and-pinion  "motives," 
self-interests,  checks,  balances ;  that  there  is  something  far 
other  in  it  than  the  clank  of  spinning-jennies,  and  parlia- 
mentary majorities;  and,  on' the  whole,  that  it  is  not  a 
machine  at  all!  —  The  old  Norse  Heathen  had  a  truer 
notion  of  God's  world  than  these  poor  Machine-Sceptics : 
the  old  Heathen  Norse  were  sincere  men.  But  for  these 
poor  Sceptics  there  was  no  sincerity,  no  truth.  Half-truth 
and  hearsay  was  called  truth.  Truth,  for  most  men,  meant 
plausibility;  to  be  measured  by  the  number  of  votes  you 
could  get.  They  had  lost  any  notion  that  sincerity  was 
possible,  or  of  what  sincerity  was.  How  many  Plausibilities 
asking,  with  unaffected  surprise  and  the  air  of  offended 
virtue,  What  !  am  not  I  sincere  ?  Spiritual  Paralysis,  I  say, 
nothing  left  but  a  Mechanical  life,  was  the  characteristic  of 
that  century.  For  the  common  man,  unless  happily  he  stood 
below  his  century  and  belonged  to  another  prior  one,  it  was 
impossible  to  be  a  Believer,  a  Hero;  he  lay  buried,  uncon- 
scious, under  these  baleful  influences.  To  the  strongest 
man,  only  with  infinite  struggle  and  confusion  was  it  possi- 
ble to  work  himself  half  loose ;  and  lead  as  it  were,  in  an 
enchanted,  most  tragical  way,  a  spiritual  death-in-life,  and 
be  a  Half-Herp! 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  191 

Scepticism  is  the  name  we  give  to  all  this;  as  the  chief 
symptom,  as  the  chief  origin  of  all  this.  Concerning  which 
so  much  were  to  be  said  !  It  would  take  many  Discourses, 
not  a  small  fraction  of  one  Discourse,  to  state  what  one  feels 
about  that  Eighteenth  Century  and  its  ways.  As  indeed 
this,  and  the  like  of  this,  which  we  now  call  Scepticism,  is 
precisely  the  black  malady  and  life-foe,  against  which  all 
teaching  and  discoursing  since  man's  life  began  has  directed 
itself:  the  battle  of  Belief  against  Unbelief  is  the  never- 
ending  battle  !  Neither  is  it  in  the  way  of  crimination  that 
one  would  wish  to  speak.  Scepticism,  for  that  century,  we 
must  consider  as  the  decay  of  old  ways  of  believing,  the 
preparation  afar  off  for  new  better  and  wider  ways,  —  an 
inevitable  thing.  We  will  not  blame  men  for  it;  we  will 
lament  their  hard  fate.  We  will  understand  that  destruc- 
tion of  old.  forms  is  not  destruction  of  everlasting  substci7ices ; 
that  Scepticism,  as  sorrowful  and  hateful  as  we  see  it,  is  not 
an  end  but  a  beginning. 

The  other  day  speaking,  without  prior  purpose  that  way, 
of  Bentham's  theory  of  man  and  man's  life,  I  chanced  to 
call  it  a  more  beggarly  one  than  Mahomet's.  I  am  bound 
to  say,  now  when  it  is  once  uttered,  that  such  is  my  deliber- 
ate opinion.  Not  that  one  would  mean  offence  against  the 
man  Jeremy  Bentham,  or  those  who  respect  and  believe 
him.  Bentham  himself,  and  even  the  creed  of  Bentham, 
seems  to  me  comparatively  worthy  of  praise.  It  is  a  deter- 
minate being  what  all  the  world,  in  a  cowardly  half-and-half 
manner,  was  tending  to  be.  Let  us  have  the  crisis;  we 
shall  either  have  death  or  the  cure.  I  call  this  gross, 
steam-engine  Utilitarianism  an  approach  towards  new  Faith. 
It  was  a  laying-down  of  cant;  a  saying  to  one's  self:  "Well 
then,  this  world  is  a  dead  iron  machine,  the  god  of  it  Gravi- 
tation and  selfish  Hunger;  let  us  see  what,  by  checking  and 


192  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

balancing,  and  good  adjustment  of  tooth  and  pinion,  can  be 
made  of  it!"  Benthamism  has  something  complete,  manful, 
in  such  fearless  committal  of  itself  to  what  it  finds  true  ;  you 
may  call  it  Heroic,  though  a  Heroism  with  its  eyes  put  out ! 
It  is  the  culminating  point,  and  fearless  ultimatum,  of  what 
lay  in  the  half-and-half  state,  pervading  man's  whole  exist- 
ence in  that  Eighteenth  Century.  It  seems  to  me,  all 
deniers  of  Godhood,  and  all  lip-believers  of  it,  are  bound 
to  be  Benthamites,  if  they  have  courage  and  honesty.  Ben- 
thamism is  an  eyeless  Heroisni*.the  Human  Species,  ITTce"  a 
hapless  blinded  Samson  grinding  in  the  Philistine  Mill, 
clasps  convulsively  the  pillars  of  its  Mill ;  brings  huge  ruin 
down,  but  ultimately  deliverance  withal.  Of  Bentham  I 
meant  to  say  no  harm. 

But  this  I  do  say,  and  would  wish  all  men  to  know  and 
lay  to  heart,  that  he  who  discerns  nothing  but  Mechanism 
in  the  Universe  has  in  the  fatalest  way  missed  the  secret  of 
the  Universe  altogether.  That  all  Godhood  should  vanish 
out  of  men's  conception  of  this  Universe  seems  to  me  pre- 
cisely the  most  brutal  error,  —  I  will  not  disparage  Heathen- 
ism by  calling  it  a  Heathen  error, — that  men  could  fall  into. 
It  is  not  true ;  it  is  false  at  the  very  heart  of  it.  A  man  who 
thinks  so  will  think  wrong  about  all  things  in  the  world ; 
this  original  sin  will  vitiate  all  other  conclusions  he  can 
form.  One  might  call  it  the  most  lamentable  of  Delusions, 
—  not  forgetting  Witchcraft  itself!  Witchcraft  worshipped 
at  least  a  living  Devil ;  but  this  worships  a  dead  iron  Devil; 
no  God,  not  even  a  Devil !  —  Whatsoever  is  noble,  divine, 
inspired,  drops  thereby  out  of  life.  There  remains  every- 
where in  life  a  despicable  caftut-mortuum j  the  mechanical 
hull,  all  soul  fled  out  of  it.  How  can  a  man  act  heroically  ? 
The  "  Doctrine  of  Motives  "  will  teach  him  that  it  is,  under 
more  or  less  disguise,  nothing  but  a  wretched  love  of  Pleas- 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  1 93 

ure,  fear  of  Pain  ;  that  Hunger,  of  applause,  of  cash,  of 
whatsoever  victual  it  may  be,  is  the  ultimate  fact  of  man's 
life.  Atheism,  in  brief;  —  which  does  indeed  frightfully 
punish  itself.  The  man,  I  say,  is  become  spiritually  a 
paralytic  man ;  this  godlike  Universe  a  dead  mechanical 
steam-engine,  all  working  by  motives,  checks,  balances,  and 
I  know  not  what;  wherein,  as  in  the  detestable  belly  of 
some  Phalaris'-Bull  of  his  own  contriving,  he  the  poor 
Phalaris  sits  miserably  dying  ! 

Belief  I  define  to  be  the  healthy  act  of  a  man's  mind.  It 
is  a  mysterious  indescribable  process,  that  of  getting  to  be- 
lieve ;  —  indescribable,  as  all  vital  acts  are.  We  have  our 
mind  given  us,  not  that  it  may  cavil  and  argue,  but  that  it 
may  see  into  something,  give  us  clear  belief  and  understand- 
ing about  something,  whereon  we  are  then  to  proceed  to  act. 
Doubt,  truly,  is  not  itself  a  crime.  Certainly  we  do  not  rush 
out,  clutch  up  the  first  thing  we  find,  and  straightway  believe 
that!  All  manner  of  doubt,  inquiry,  oni-ip's  as  it  is  named, 
about  all  manner  of  objects,  dwells  in  every  reasonable  mind. 
It  is  the  mystic  working  of  the  mind,  on  the  object  it  is  get- 
ting to  know  and  believe.  Belief  comes  out  of  all  this,  above 
ground,  like  the  tree  from  its  hidden  roots.  But  now  if,  even 
on  common  things,  we  require  that  a  man  keep  his  doubts 
silent,  and  not  babble  of  them  till  they  in  some  measure 
become  affirmations  or  denials ;  how  much  more  in  regard 
to  the  highest  things,  impossible  to  speak  of  in  words  at  all ! 
That  a  man  parade  his  doubt,  and  get  to  imagine  that  debat- 
ing and  logic  (which  means  at  best  only  the  manner  of  telling 
us  your  thought,  your  belief  or  disbelief,  about  a  thing)  is  the 
triumph  and  true  work  of  what  intellect  he  has  :  alas,  this  is  as 
if  you  should  overturn  the  tree,  and  instead  of  green  boughs, 
leaves  and  fruits,  show  us  ugly  taloned  roots  turned  up  into 
the  air,  —  and  no  growth,  only  death  and  misery  going  on  ! 


194  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

For  the  Scepticism,  as  I  said,  is  not  intellectual  only  ;  it 
is  moral  also ;  a  chronic  atrophy  and  disease  of  the  whole 
soul.  A  man  lives  by  believing  something:  not  by  debating 
and  arguing  about  many  things.  A  sad  case  for  him  when 
all  that  he  can  manage  to  believe  is  something  he  can  button 
in  his  pocket,  and  with  one  or  the  other  organ  eat  and  digest ! 
Lower  than  that  he  will  not  get.  We  call  those  ages  in  which 
he  gets  so  low  the  mournfulest,  sickest  and  meanest  of  all 
ages.  The  world's  heart  is  palsied,  sick  :  how  can  any  limb 
of  it  be  whole?  Genuine  Acting  ceases  in  all  departments 
of  the  world's  work ;  dextrous  Similitude  of  Acting  begins. 
The  world's  wages  are  pocketed,  the  world's  work  is  not 
done.  Heroes  have  gone  out;  Quacks  have  come  in.  Ac- 
cordingly, what  Century,  since  the  end  of  the  Roman  world, 
which  also  was  a  time  of  scepticism,  simulacra  and  universal 
decadence,  so  abounds  with  Quacks  as  that  Eighteenth  ? 
Consider  them,  with  their  tumid  sentimental  vaporing  about 
virtue,  benevolence,  —  the  wretched  Quack-squadron,  Cagli- 
ostro  at  the  head  of  them !  Few  men  were  without  quack- 
ery ;  they  had  got  to  consider  it  a  necessary  ingredient  and 
amalgam  for  truth.  Chatham,  our  brave  Chatham  himself, 
comes  down  to  the  House,  all  wrapt  and  bandaged;  he  "has 
crawled  out  in  great  bodily  suffering,"  and  so  on  ;  — forgets, 
says  Walpole,  that  he  is  acting  the  sick  man ;  in  the  fire  of 
debate,  snatches  his  arm  from  the  sling,  and  oratorically 
swings  and  brandishes  it !  Chatham  himself  lives  the  stran- 
gest mimetic  life,  half-hero,  half-quack,  all  along.  For  indeed 
the  world  is  full  of  dupes ;  and  you  have  to  gain  the  world's 
suffrage !  How  the  duties  of  the  world  will  be  done  in  that 
case,  wb,at  quantities  of  error,  which  means  failure,  which 
means  sorrow  and  misery,  to  some  and  to  many,  will  gradu- 
ally accumulate  in  all  provinces  of  the  world's  business,  we 
need  not  compute. 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  1 95 

It  seems  to  me,  you  lay  your  finger  here  on  the  heart  of 
the  world's  maladies,  when  you  call  it  a  Sceptical  World. 
An  insincere  world ;  a  godless  untruth  of  a  world  !  It  is  out 
of  this,  as  I  consider,  that  the  whole  tribe  of  social  pesti- 
lences, French  Revolutions,  Chartisms,  and  what  not,  have 
derived  their  being,  —  their  chief  necessity  to  be.  This  must 
alter.  Till  this  alter,  nothing  can  beneficially  alter.  My  one 
hope  of  the  world,  my  inexpugnable  consolation  in  looking 
at  the  miseries  of  the  world,  is  that  this  is  altering.  Here 
and  there  one  does  now  find  a  man  who  knows,  as  of  old, 
that  this  world  is  a  Truth,  and  no  Plausibility  and  Falsity; 
that  he  himself  is  alive,  not  dead  or  paralytic ;  and  that  the 
world  is  alive,  instinct  with  Godhood,  beautiful  and  awful, 
even  as  in  the  beginning  of  days  !  One  man  once  knowing 
this,  many  men,  all  men,  must  by  and  by  come  to  know  it. 
It  lies  there  clear,  for  whosoever  will  take  the  spectacles  off 
his  eyes  and  honestly  look,  to  know !  For  such  a  man  the 
Unbelieving  Century,  with  its  unblessed  Products,  is  already 
past :  a  new  century  is  already  come.  The  old  unblessed 
Products  and  Performances,  as  solid  as  they  look,  are  Phan- 
tasms, preparing  speedily  to  vanish.  To  this  and  the  other 
noisy,  very  great-looking  Simulacrum  with  the  whole  world 
huzzahing  at  its  heels,  he  can  say,  composedly  stepping 
aside:  Thou  art  not  true j  thou  art  not  extant,  only  sem- 
blant;  go  thy  way!  —  Yes,  hollow  Formulism,  gross  Ben- 
thamism, and  other  unheroic  atheistic  Insincerity  is  visibly 
and  even  rapidly  declining.  An  unbelieving  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury is  but  an  exception,  —  such  as  now  and  then  occurs.  I 
prophesy  that  the  world  will  once  more  become  si7icere ;  a 
believing  world ;  with  many  Heroes  in  it,  a  heroic  world ! 
It  will  then  be  a  victorious  world;  never  till  then. 

Or  indeed  what  of  the  world  and  its  victories?  Men 
speak  too  much  about  the  world.     Each  one  of  us  here,  let 


196  LECTURES   ON  HEROES. 

the  world  go  how  it  will,  and  be  victorious  or  not  victorious, 
has  he  not  a  Life  of  his  own  to  lead  ?  One  Life ;  a  little 
gleam  of  Time  between  two  Eternities ;  no  second  chance 
to  us  forevermore!  It  were  well  for  us  to  live  not  as  fools 
and  simulacra,  but  as  wise  and  realities.  The  world's -being 
saved  will  not  save  us ;  nor  the  world's  being  lost  destroy 
us.  We  should  look  to  ourselves:  there  is  great  merit  here 
in  the  "duty  of  staying  at  home  "  !  And,  on  the  whole,  to 
say  truth,  I  never  heard  of  "  worlds  "  being  "  saved  "  in  any 
other  way.  That  mania  of  saving  worlds  is  itself  a  piece  of 
the  Eighteenth  Century  with  its  windy  sentimentalism.  Let 
us  not  follow  it  too  far.  For  the  saving  of  the  world  I  will 
trust  confidently  to  the  Maker  of  the  world ;  and  look  a  little 
to  my  own  saving,  which  I  am  more  competent  to!  —  In 
brief,  for  the  world's  sake,  and  for  our  own,  we  will  rejoice 
greatly  that  Scepticism,  Insincerity,  Mechanical  Atheism, 
with  all  their  poison-dews,  are  going,  and  as  good  as 
gone. 

Now  it  was  under  such  conditions,  in  those  times  of 
Johnson,  that  our  Men  of  Letters  had  to  live.  Times  in 
which  there  was  properly  no  truth  in  life.  Old  truths  had 
fallen  nigh  dumb ;  the  new  lay  yet  hidden,  not  trying  to 
speak.  That  Man's  Life  here  below  was  a  Sincerity  and 
Fact,  and  would  forever  continue  such,  no  new  intimation, 
in  that  dusk  of  the  world,  had  yet  dawned.  No  intimation ; 
not  even  any  French  Revolution,  —  which  we  define  to  be 
a  Truth  once  more,  though  a  Truth  clad  in  hellfire !  How 
different  was  the  Luther's  pilgrimage,  with  its  assured  goal, 
from  the  Johnson's,  girt  with  mere  traditions,  suppositions, 
grown  now  incredible,  unintelligible  !  Mahomet's  Formulas 
were  of  "  wood  waxed  and  oiled,"  and  could  be  burnt  out  of 
one's  way :  poor  Johnson's  were  far  more  difficult  to  burn.  — 
The  strong  man  will  ever  find  work,  which  means  difficulty, 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.         1 97 

pain,  to  the  full  measure  of  his  strength.  But  to  make  out 
a  victory,  in  those  circumstances  of  our  poor  Hero  as  Man 
of  Letters,  was  perhaps  more  difficult  than  in  any.  Not 
obstruction,  disorganization,  Bookseller  Osborne  and  Four- 
pence-halfpenny  a  day ;  not  this  alone ;  but  the  light  of  his 
own  soul  was  taken  from  him.  No  landmark  on  the  Earth ; 
and,  alas,  what  is  that  to  having  no  loadstar  in  the  Heaven ! 
We  need  not  wonder  that  none  of  those  Three  men  rose  to 
victory.  That  they  fought  truly  is  the  highest  praise.  With 
a  mournful  sympathy  we  will  contemplate,  if  not  three  living 
victorious  Heroes,  as  I  said,  the  Tombs  of  three  fallen 
Heroes!  They  fell  for  us  too;  making  a  way  for  us.  There 
are  the  mountains  which  they  hurled  abroad  in  their  con- 
fused War  of  the  Giants ;  under  which,  their  strength  and 
life  spent,  they  now  lie  buried. 

I  have  already  written  of  these  three  Literary  Heroes, 
expressly  or  incidentally  ;  what  I  suppose  is  known  to  most 
of  you ;  what  need  not  be  spoken  or  written  a  second  time. 
They  concern  us  here  as  the  singular  Prophets  of  that  sin- 
gular age:  for  such  they  virtually  were;  and  the  aspect 
they  and  their  world  exhibit,  under  this  point  of  view,  might 
lead  us  into  reflections  enough !  I  call  them,  all  three, 
Genuine  Men  more  or  less;  faithfully,  for  most  part  uncon- 
sciously, struggling  to  be  genuine,  and  plant  themselves 
on  the  everlasting  truth  of  things.  This  to  a  degree  that 
eminently  distinguishes  them  from  the  poor  artificial  mass 
of  their  contemporaries ;  and  renders  them  worthy  to  be 
considered  as  Speakers,  in  some  measure,  of  the  everlasting 
truth,  as  Prophets  in  that  age  of  theirs.  By  Nature  herself 
a  noble  necessity  was  laid  on  them  to  be  so.  They  were 
men  of  such  magnitude  that  they  could  not  live  on  unreali- 
ties,—  clouds,  froth  and  all  inanity  gave  way  under  them; 


198  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

there  was  no  footing  for  them  but  on  firm  earth  ;  no  rest  Of 
regular  motion  for  them,  if  they  got  not  footing  there.  To 
a  certain  extent,  they  were  Sons  of  Nature  once  more  in  an 
age  of  Artifice ;  once  more,  Original  Men. 

As  for  Johnson,  I  have  always  considered  him  to  be,  by 
nature,  one  of  our  great  English  souls.  A  strong  and  noble 
man  ;  so  much  left  undeveloped  in  him  to  the  last :  in  a  kind- 
lier element  what  might  he  not  have  been,  —  Poet,  Priest, 
sovereign  Ruler!  On  the  whole,  a  man  must  not  complain 
of  his  "element,"  of  his  "time,"  or  the  like;  it  is  thriftless 
work  doing  so.  His  time  is  bad:  well  then,  he  is  there  to 
make  it  better!  —  Johnson's  youth  was  poor,  isolated,  hope- 
less, very  miserable.  Indeed,  it  does  not  seem  possible  that, 
in  any  the  favorablest  outward  circumstances,  Johnson's  life 
could  have  been  other  than  a  painful  one.  The  world  might 
have  had  more  of  profitable  work  out  of  him,  or  less ;  but 
his  effort  against  the  world's  work  could  never  have  been  a 
light  one.  Nature,  in  return  for  his  nobleness,  had  said  to 
him,  Live  in  an  element  of  diseased  sorrow.  Nay,  perhaps 
the  sorrow  and  the  nobleness  were  intimately  and  even  in- 
separably connected  with  each  other.  At  all  events,  poor 
Johnson  had  to  go  about  girt  with  continual  hypochondria, 
physical  and  spiritual  pain.  Like  a  Hercules  with  the  burn- 
ing Nessus'-shirt  on  him,  which  shoots  in  on  him  dull  incur- 
able misery :  the  Nessus'-shirt  not  to  be  stript  off,  which  is 
his  own  natural  skin  !  In  this  manner  he  had  to  live.  Fig- 
ure him  there,  with  his  scrofulous  diseases,  with  his  great 
greedy  heart,  and  unspeakable  chaos  of  thoughts ;  stalking 
mournful  as  a  stranger  in  this  Earth  ;  eagerly  devouring 
what  spiritual  thing  he  could  come  at :  school-languages  and 
other  merely  grammatical  stuff,  if  there  were  nothing  better ! 
The  largest  soul  that  was  in  all  England  ;  and  provision 
made  for  it  of  "  fourpence-halfpenny  a  day."     Yet  a  giant 


;hes  them  out  of  window."*—  Page  199. 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  1 99 

invincible  soul ;  a  true  man's.  One  remembers  always  that 
story  of  the  shoes  at  Oxford :  the  rough,  seamy  faced,  raw- 
boned  College  Servitor  stalking  about,  in  winter-season,  with 
his  shoes  worn  out ;  how  the  charitable  Gentleman  Com- 
moner secretly  places  a  new  pair  at  his  door;  and  the  raw- 
boned  Servitor,  lifting  them,  looking  at  them  near,  with  his 
dim  eyes,  with  what  thoughts,  —  pitches  them  out  of  window! 
Wet  feet,  mud,  frost,  hunger,  or  what  you  will ;  but  not  beg- 
gary :  we  cannot  stand  beggary !  Rude  stubborn  self-help 
here :  a  whole  world  of  squalor,  rudeness,  confused  misery 
and  want,  yet  of  nobleness  and  manfulness  withal.  It  is  a 
type  of  the  man's  life,  this  pitching  away  of  the  shoes.  An 
original  man;  — not  a  second-hand,  borrowing  or  begging 
man.  Let  us  stand  on  our  own  basis,  at  any  rate  !  On  such 
shoes  as  we  ourselves  can  get.  On  frost  and  mud,  if  you 
will,  but  honestly  on  that;  —  on  the  reality  and  substance 
which  Nature  gives  its,  not  on  the  semblance,  on  the  thing 
she  has  given  another  than  us  ! 

And  yet  with  all  this  rugged  pride  of  manhood  and  self- 
help,  was  there  ever  soul  more  tenderly  affectionate,  loyally 
submissive  to  what  was  really  higher  than  he?  Great  souls 
are  always  loyally  submissive,  reverent  to  what  is  over  them  ; 
only  small  mean  souls  are  otherwise.  I  could  not  find  a 
better  proof  of  what  I  said  the  other  day,  That  the  sincere 
man  was  by  nature  the  obedient  man  ;  that  only  in  a  World 
of  Heroes  was  there  loyal  Obedience  to  the  Heroic.  The 
essence  of  originality  is  not  that  it  be  new :  Johnson  believed 
altogether  in  the  old;  he  found  the  old  opinions  credible  for 
him,  fit  for  him  ;  and  in  a  right  heroic  manner  lived"  under 
them.  He  is  well  worth  study  in  regard  to  that.  For  we 
are  to  say  that  Johnson  was  far  other  than  a  mere  man  of 
words  and  formulas ;  he  was  a  man  of  truths  and  facts.  He 
stood  by  the  old  formulas  ;  the  happier  was  it  for  him  that 


200  LECTURES  ON  HEKOES. 

he  could  so  stand :  but  in  all  formulas  that  he  could  stand 
by,  there  needed  to  be  a  most  genuine  substance.  Very 
curious  how,  in  that  poor  Paper-age,  so  barren,  artificial, 
thick-quilted  with  Pedantries,  Hearsays,  the  great  Fact  of 
this  Universe  glared  in,  forever  wonderful,  indubitable,  un- 
speakable, divine-infernal,  upon  this  man  too!  How  he  har- 
monized his  Formulas  with  it,  how  he  managed  at  all  under 
such  circumstances  :  that  is  a  thing  worth  seeing.  A  thing 
"  to  be  looked  at  with  reverence,  with  pity,  with  awe."  That 
Church  of  St.  Clement  Danes,  where  Johnson  still  worshipped 
in  the  era  of  Voltaire,  is  to  me  a  venerable  place. 

It  was  in  virtue  of  his  sincerity,  of  his  speaking  still  in 
some  sort  from  the  heart  of  Nature,  though  in  the  current 
artificial  dialect,  that  Johnson  was  a  Prophet.  Are  not  all 
dialects  " artificial"?  Artificial  things  are  not  all  false;  — 
nay  every  true  Product  of  Nature  will  infallibly  shape  itself; 
we  may  say  all  artificial  things  are,  at  the  starting  of  them, 
true.  What  we  call  "  Formulas  "  are  not  in  their  origin  bad ; 
they  are  indispensably  good.  Formula  is  method,  habitude  ; 
found  wherever  man  is  found.  Formulas  fashion  themselves 
as  Paths  do,  as  beaten  Highways,  leading  towards  some  sa- 
cred or  high  object,  whither  many  men  are  bent.  Consider 
it.  One  man,  full  of  heartfelt  earnest  impulse,  finds  out  a 
way  of  doing  somewhat,  —  were  it  of  uttering  his  soul's  rev- 
erence for  the  Highest,  were  it  but  of  fitly  saluting  his  fellow- 
man.  An  inventor  was  needed  to  do  that,  a  poet ;  he  has 
articulated  the  dim-struggling  thought  that  dwelt  in  his  own 
and  many  hearts.  This  is  his  way  of  doing  that;  these  are 
his  footsteps,  the  beginning  of  a  "  Path."  And  now  see : 
the  second  man  travels  naturally  in  the  footsteps  of  his  fore- 
goer,  it  is  the  easiest  method.  In  the  footsteps  of  his  fore- 
goer  ;  yet  with  improvements,  with  changes  where  such  seem 
good ;  at  all  events  with  enlargements,  the  Path  ever  widen- 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.         20t 

ing  itself  as  more  travel  it ;  —  till  at  last  there  is  a  broad 
Highway  whereon  the  whole  world  may  travel  and  drive. 
While  there  remains  a  City  or  Shrine,  or  any  Reality  to  drive 
to,  at  the  farther  end,  the  Highway  shall  be  right  welcome  ! 
When  the  City  is  gone,  we  will  forsake  the  Highway.  In 
this  manner  all  Institutions,  Practices,  Regulated  Things  in 
the  world  have  come  into  existence,  and  gone  out  of  exist- 
ence. Formulas  all  begin  by  being /u// of  substance;  you 
may  call  them  the  skin,  the  articulation  into  shape,  into 
limbs  and  skin,  of  a  substance  that  is  already  there:  they 
had  not  been  there  otherwise.  Idols,  as  we  said,  are  not 
idolatrous  till  they  become  doubtful,  empty  for  the  worship- 
per's heart.  -Much  as  we  talk  against  Formulas,  I  hope  no 
one  of  us  is  ignorant  withal  of  the  high  significance  of  true 
Formulas ;  that  they  were,  and  will  ever  be,  the  indispensa- 

blest  furniture  of  our  habitation  in  this  world. 

Mark,  too,  how  little  Johnson  boasts  of  his  "  sincerity." 
He  has  no  suspicion  of  his  being  particularly  sincere, — 
of  his  being  particularly  any  thing!  A  hard-struggling, 
weary-hearted  man,  or  "  scholar  "  as  he  calls  himself,  trying 
hard  to  get  some  honest  livelihood  in  the  world,  not  to 
starve,  but  to  live  —  without  stealing!  A  noble  uncon- 
sciousness is  in  him.  He  does  not  "  engrave  Truth  on  his 
watch-seal ; "  no,  but  he  stands  by  truth,  speaks  by  it,  works 
and  lives  by  it.  Thus  it  ever  is.  Think  of  it  once  more. 
The  man  whom  Nature  has  appointed  to  do  great  things 
is,  first  of  all,  furnished  with  that  openness  to  Nature  which 
renders  him  incapable  of  being  /^sincere  !  To  his  large, 
open,  deep-feeling  heart  Nature  is  a  Fact :  all  hearsay  is 
hearsay ;  the  unspeakable  greatness  of  this  Mystery  of  Life, 
let  him  acknowledge  it  or  not,  nay  even  though  he  seem  to 
forget  it  or  deny  it,  is  ever  present  to  him,  —  fearful  and 
wonderful,  on   this  hand  and  on  that.     He  has  a  basis  of 


202  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

sincerity ;  unrecognized,  because  never  questioned  or  capa- 
ble  of  question.  Mirabeau,  Mahomet,  Cromwell,  Napoleon: 
all  the  Great  Men  I  ever  heard  of  have  this  as  the  primary 
material  of  them.  Innumerable  commonplace  men  are  de- 
bating, are  talking  everywhere  their  commonplace  doctrines, 
which  they  have  learned  by  logic,  by  rote,  at  second-hand ; 
to  that  kind  of  man  all  this  is  still  nothing.  He  must  have 
truth;  truth  which  he  feels  to  be  true.  How  shall  he  stand 
otherwise?  His  whole  soul,  at  all  moments,  in  all  ways, 
tells  him  that  there  is  no  standing.  He  is  under  the  noble 
necessity  of  being  true.  Johnson's  way  of  thinking  about 
this  world  is  not  mine,  any  more  than  Mahomet's  was :  but 
I  recognize  the  everlasting  element  of  heart-sincerity  in 
both ;  and  see  with  p^asure  how  neither  of  them  remains 
ineffectual.  Neither  of  them  is  as  chaff  sown  ;  in  both  of 
them  is  something  which  the  seed-field  will  grow. 

Johnson  was  a  Prophet  to  his  people  ;  preached  a  Gospel 
to  them,  —  as  all  like  him  always  do.  The  highest  Gospel  he 
preached  we  may  describe  as  a  kind  of  Moral  Prudence : 
"  in  a  world  where  much  is  to  be  done,  and  little  is  to  be 
known,"  see  how  you  will  do  it !  A  thing  well  worth  preach- 
ing. "  A  world  where  much  is  to  be  done,  and  little  is  to 
be  known  :  "  do  not  sink  yourselves  in  boundless  bottomless 
abysses  of  Doubt,  of  wretched  God-forgetting  Unbelief;  — 
you  were  miserable  then,  powerless,  mad  :  how  could  you 
do  or  work  at  all?  Such  Gospel  Johnson  preached  and 
taught;  —  coupled,  theoretically  and  practically,  with  this 
other  great  Gospel,  "  Clear  your  mind  of  Cant !  "  Have 
no  trade  with  Cant :  stand  on  the  cold  mud  in  the  frosty 
weather,  but  let  it  be  in  your  own  real  torn  shoes  :  "  that 
will  be  better  for  you,"  as  Mahomet  says  !  I  call  this,  I  call 
these  two  things  joi?ied  together,  a  great  Gospel,  the  greatest 
perhaps  that  was  possible  at  that  time. 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OP  LETTERS.         203 

Johnson's  Writings,  which  once  had  such  currency  and 
celebrity,  are  now,  as  it  were,  disowned  by  the  young  gen- 
eration. It  is  not  wonderful;  Johnson's  opinions  are  fast 
becoming  obsolete :  but  his  style  of  thinking  and  of  living, 
we  may  hope,  will  never  become  obsolete.  I  find  in  John- 
son's Books  the  indisputablest  traces  of  a  great  intellect 
and  great  heart;  —  ever  welcome,  under  what  obstructions 
and  perversions  soever.  They  are  sincere  words,  those  of 
his  ;  he  means  things  by  them.  A  wondrous  buckram  style, 
—  the  best  he  could  get  to  then;  a  measured  grandiloquence, 
stepping  or  rather  stalking  along  in  a  very  solemn  way, 
grown  obsolete  now ;  sometimes  a  tumid  size  of  phraseology 
not  in  proportion  to  the  contents  of  it:  all  this  you  will  put 
up  with.  For  the  phraseology,  tumid  or  not,  has  always 
something  within  it.  So  many  beautiful  styles  and  books, 
with  nothing  in  them  ;  —  a  man  is  a  ?nalei^oXox  to  the  world 
who  writes  such!  They  are  the  avoidable  kind! — Had 
Johnson  left  nothing  but  his  Dictionary,  one  might  have 
traced  there  a  great  intellect,  a  genuine  man.  Looking  to  its 
clearness  of  definition,  its  general  solidity,  honesty,  insight 
and  successful  method,  it  may  be  called  the  best  of  all 
Dictionaries.  There  is  in  it  a  kind  of  architectural  noble- 
ness ;  it  stands  there  like  a  great  solid  square-built  edifice, 
finished,  symmetrically  complete :  you  judge  that  a  true 
Builder  did  it. 

One  word,  in  spite  of  our  haste,  must  be  granted  to  poor 
Bozzy.  He  passes  for  a  mean,  inflated,  gluttonous  creature ; 
and  was  so  in  many  senses.  Yet  the  fact  of  his  rever- 
ence for  Johnson  will  ever  remain  noteworthy.  The  foolish 
conceited  Scotch  Laird,  the  most  conceited  man  of  his 
time,  approaching  in  such  awestruck  attitude  the  great  dusty 
irascible  Pedagogue  in  his  mean  garret  there :  it  is  a 
genuine  reverence  for  Excellence ;  a  worship  for  Heroes,  at 


204  LECTURES  0,V  HEROES. 

a  time  when  neither  Heroes  nor  worship  were  surmised 
to  exist.  Heroes,  it  would  seem,  exist  always,  and  a  cer- 
tain worship  of  them  !  We  will  also  take  the  liberty  to 
deny  altogether  that  of  the  witty  Frenchman,  that  no  man 
is  a  Hero  to  his  valet-de-chambre.  Or  if  so,  it  is  not  the 
Hero's  blame,  but  the  Valet's:  that  his  soul,  namely,  is  a 
mean  7W*/-soul !  He  expects  his  Hero  to  advance  in 
royal  stage-trappings,  with  measured  step,  trains  borne 
behind  him,  trumpets  sounding  before  him.  It  should  stand 
rather,  No  man  can  be  a  Grand  Monar que  to  his  valet-de- 
chambre.  Strip  your  Louis  Ouatorze  of  his  king  gear,  and 
there  is  left  nothing  but  a  poor  forked  raddish  with  a  head 
fantastically  carved ;  — admirable  to  no  valet.  The  Valet 
does  not  know  a  Hero  when  he  sees  him  !  Alas,  no :  it 
requires  a  kind  of  Hero  to  do  that;  —  and  one  of  the  world's 
wants,  in  this  as  in  other  senses,  is  for  most  part  want  of 
such. 

On  the  whole,  shall  we  not  say,  that  Boswell's  admiration 
was  well  bestowed ;  that  he  could  have  found  no  soul  in  all 
England  so  worthy  of  bending  down  before  ?  Shall  we  not 
say,  of  this  great  mournful  Johnson  too,  that  he  guided  his 
difficult  confused  existence  wisely ;  led  it  well,  like  a  right- 
valiant  man?  .That  waste  chaos  of  Authorship  by  trade; 
that  waste  chaos  of  Scepticism  in  religion  and  politics,  in 
life-theory  and  life-practice;  in  his  poverty,  in  his  dust  and 
dimness,  with  the  sick  body  and  the  rusty  coat :  he  made 
it  do  for  him,  like  a  brave  man.  Not  wholly  without  a  load- 
star in  the  Eternal ;  he  had  still  a  loadstar,  as  the  brave  all 
need  to  have  :  with  his  eye  set  on  that,  he  would  change  his 
course  for  nothing  in  these  confused  vortices  of  the  lower 
sea  of  Time.  "To  the  Spirit  of  Lies,  bearing  death  and 
hunger,  he  would  in  no  wise  strike  his  flag."  Brave  old 
Samuel :  ultimus  Romanorutn  / 


HIGH  HUT  NARROW  CONTRACTED  INTENSITY  IN  IT."—  Page  205. 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO   AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.         205 

Of  Rousseau  and  his  Heroism  I  cannot  say  so  much.  He 
is  not  what  I  call  a  strong  man.  A  morbid,  excitable,  spas- 
modic man  ;  at  best,  intense  rather  than  strong.  He  had 
not  "  the  talent  of  Silence,"  an  invaluable  talent ;  which  few 
Frenchmen,  or  indeed  men  of  any  sort  in  these  times,  excel 
in !  The  suffering  man  ought  really  "  to  consume  his  own 
smoke ; "  there  is  no  good  in  emitting  smoke  till  you  have 
made  it  into  fire,  —  which,  in  the  metaphorical  sense  too, 
all  smoke  is  capable  of  becoming!  Rousseau  has  not  depth 
or  width,  not  calm  force  for  difficulty ;  the  first  characteristic 
of  true  greatness.  A  fundamental  mistake  to  call  vehemence 
and  rigidity  strength  !  A  man  is  not  strong  who  takes  con- 
vulsion-fits ;  though  six  men  cannot  hold  him  then.  He 
that  can  walk  under  the  heaviest  weight  without  staggering, 
he  is  the  strong  man.  We  need  forever,  especially  in  these 
loud-shrieking  days,  to  remind  ourselves  of  that.  A  man 
who  cannot  hold  his  peace,  till  the  time  come  for  speaking 
and  acting,  is  no  right  man. 

Poor  Rousseau's  face  is  to  me  expressive  of  him.  A  high 
but  narrow  contracted  intensity  in  it:  bony  brows;  deep, 
straight-set  eyes,  in  which  there  is  something  bewildered- 
looking,  —  bewildered,  peering  with  lynx-eagerness.  A  face 
full  of  misery,  even  ignoble  misery,  and  also  of  the  antago- 
nism against  that;  something  mean,  plebeian  there,  redeemed 
only  by  intensity  :  the  face  of  what  is  called  a  Fanatic,  —  a 
sadly  contracted  Hero !  We  name  him  here  because,  with 
all  his  drawbacks,  and  they  are  many,  he  has  the  first  and 
chief  characteristic  of  a  Hero:  he  is  heartily  in  earnest.  In 
earnest,  if  ever  man  was;  as  none  of  these  French  Philo- 
sophies were.  Nay,  one  would  say,  of  an  earnestness  too  great 
for  his  otherwise  sensitive,  rather  feeble  nature :  and  which 
indeed  in  the  end  drove  him  into  the  strangest  incoherences, 
almost  delirations.    There  had  come,  at  last,  to  be  a  kind  of 


206  LECTURES   O.V  HEROES. 

madness  in  him:  his  Ideas  possessed  him  like  demons;  hur- 
ried him  so  about,  drove  him  over  steep  places !  — 

The  fault  and  misery  of  Rousseau  was  what  we  easily 
name  by  a  single  word,  Egoism;  which  is  indeed  the  source 
and  summary  of  all  faults  and  miseries  whatsoever.  He  had 
not  perfected  himself  into  victory  over  mere  Desire;  a  mean 
Hunger,  in  many  sorts,  was  still  the  motive  principle  of  him. 
I  am  afraid  he  was  a  very  vain  man ;  hungry  for  the  praises 
of  men.  You  remember  Genlis's  experience  of  him.  She 
took  Jean  Jacques  to  the  Theatre  ;  he  bargaining  for  a  strict 
incognito,  —  "He  would  not  be  seen  there  for  the  world!" 
The  curtain  did  happen  nevertheless  to  be  drawn  aside :  the 
Pit  recognized  Jean  Jacques,  but  took  no  great  notice  of  him ! 
He  expressed  the  bitterest  indignation;  gloomed  all  evening, 
spake  no  other  than  surly  words.  The  glib  Countess  re- 
mained entirely  convinced  that  his  anger  was  not  at  being 
seen,  but  at  not  being  applauded  when  seen.  How  the  whole 
nature  of  the  man  is  poisoned ;  nothing  but  suspicion,  self- 
isolation,  fierce  moody  ways !  He  could  not  live  with  any- 
body. A  man  of  some  rank  from  the  country,  who  visited 
him  often,  and  used  to  sit  with  him,  expressing  all  reverence 
and  affection  for  him,  comes  one  day,  finds  Jean  Jacques  full 
of  the  sourest  unintelligible  humor.  "  Monsieur,"  said  Jean 
Jacques,  with  flaming  eyes,  "  I  know  why  you  come  here. 
You  come  to  see  what  a  poor  life  I  lead;  how  little  is  in  my 
poor  pot  that  is  boiling  there.  Well,  look  into  the  pot ! 
There  is  half  a  pound  of  meat,  one  carrot  and  three  onions; 
that  is  all :  go  and  tell  the  whole  world  that,  if  you  like, 
Monsieur !  "  —  A  man  of  this  sort  was  far  gone.  The  whole 
world  got  itself  supplied  with  anecdotes,  for  light  laughter, 
for  a  certain  theatrical  interest,  from  these  perversions  and 
contortions  of  poor  Jean  Jacques.  Alas,  to  him  they  were 
not  laughing  or  theatrical ;  too  real  to  him !     The  contor* 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  20? 

tions  of  a  dying  gladiator :  the  crowded  amphitheatre  looks 
on  with  entertainment;  but  the  gladiator  is  in  agonies  and 
dying. 

And  yet  this  Rousseau,  as  we  say,  with  his  passionate 
appeals  to  Mothers,  with  his  Contrat-social,  with  his  celebra- 
tions of  Nature,  even  of  savage  life  in  Nature,  did  once  more 
touch  upon  Reality,  struggle  towards  Reality:  was  doing  the 
function  of  a  Prophet  to  his  Time.  As  he  could,  and  as  the 
Time  could  !  Strangely  through  all  that  defacement,  degra- 
dation and  almost  madness,  there  is  in  the  inmost  heart  of 
poor  Rousseau  a  spark  of  real  heavenly  fire.  Once  more 
out  of  the  element  of  that  withered  mocking  Philosophism, 
Scepticism  and  Persiflage,  there  has  arisen  in  this  man  the 
"ineradicable  feeling  and  knowledge  that  this  Life  of  ours  is 
true;  not  a  Scepticism,  Theorem,  or  Persiflage,  but  a  Fact, 
an  awful  Reality.  Nature  had  made  that  revelation  to  him ; 
had  ordered  him  to  speak  it  out.  He  got  it  spoken  out:  if 
not  well  and  clearly,  then  ill  and  dimly,  —  as  clearly  as  he 
could.  Nay  what  are  all  errors  and  perversities  of  his,  even 
those  stealings  of  ribbons,  aimless  confused  miseries  and 
vagabondisms,  if  we  will  interpret  them  kindly,  but  the  blink- 
ard  dazzlement  and  staggerings  to  and  fro  of  a  man  sent  on 
an  errand  he  is  too  weak  for,  by  a  path  he  cannot  yet  find  ? 
Men  are  led  by  strange  ways.  One  should  have  tolerance 
for  a  man,  hope  of  him;  leave  him  to  try  yet  what  he  will 
do.     While  life  lasts,  hope  lasts  for  every  man. 

Of  Rousseau's  literary  talents,  greatly  celebrated  still 
among  his  countrymen,  I  do  not  say  much.  His  Books,  like 
himself,  are  what  I  call  unhealthy:  not  the  good  sort  of 
Books.  There  is  a  sensuality  in  Rousseau.  Combined  with 
such  an  intellectual  gift  as  his,  it  makes  pictures  of  a  certain 
gorgeous  attractiveness  :  but  they  are  not  genuinely  poetical. 
Not  white  sunlight:  something  operatic;  a  kind  of  rosepink. 


208  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

artificial  bedizenment.  It  is  frequent,  or  rather  it  is  univer- 
sal, among  the  French  since  his  time.  Madame  de  Stael 
has  something  of  it ;  St.  Pierre  ;  and  down  onwards  to  the 
present  astonishing  convulsionary  "  Literature  of  Despera- 
tion," it  is  everywhere  abundant.  That  same  rosepink  is 
not  the  right  hue.  Look  at  a  Shakspeare,  at  a  Goethe,  even 
at  a  Walter  Scott!  He  who  has  once  seen  into  this,  has 
seen  the  difference  of  the  True  from  the  Sham-True,  and 
will  discriminate  them  ever  afterwards. 

We  had  to  observe  in  Johnson  how  much  good  a  Prophet, 
under  all  disadvantages  and  disorganizations,  can  accomplish 
for  the  world.  In  Rousseau  we  are  called  to  look  rather  at 
the  fearful  amount  of  evil  which,  under  such  disorganization, 
may  accompany  the  good.  Historically  it  is  a  most  pregnant 
spectacle,  that  of  Rousseau.  Banished  into  Paris  garrets,  in 
the  gloomy  company  of  his  own  Thoughts  and  Necessities 
there ;  driven  from  post  to  pillar ;  fretted,  exasperated  till 
the  heart  of  him  went  mad,  he  had  grown  to  feel  deeply 
that  the  world  was  not  his  friend  nor  the  world's  law.  It 
was  expedient,  if  any  way'possible,  that  such  a  man  should 
not  have  been  set  in  flat  hostility  with  the  world.  He  could 
be  cooped  into  garrets,  laughed  at  as  a  maniac,  left  to  starve 
like  a  wild-beast  in  his  cage;  —  but  he  could  not  be  hindered 
from  setting  the  world  on  fire.  The  French  Revolution 
found  its  Evangelist  in  Rousseau.  His  semi-delirious  spec- 
ulations on  the  miseries  of  civilized  life,  the  preferability  of 
the  savage  to  the  civilized,  and  such  like,  helped  well  to 
produce  a  whole  delirium  in  France  generally.  True,  you 
may  well  ask,  What  could  the  world,  the  governors  of  the 
world,  do  with  such  a  man  ?  Difficult  to  say  what  the  gov- 
ernors of  the  world  could  do  with  him  !  What  he  could  do 
with  them  is  unhappily  clear  enough,  — guillotine  a  great 
many  of  them !    Enough  now  of  Rousseau, 


THE  HERO   AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  209 

It  was  a  curious  phenomenon,  in  the  withered,  unbeliev- 
ing, second-hand  Eighteenth  Century,  that  of  a  Hero  starting 
up,  among  the  artificial  pasteboard  figures  and  productions, 
in  the  guise  of  a  Robert  Burns.  Like  a  little  well  in  the 
rocky  desert  places,  —  like  a  sudden  splendor  of  Heaven 
in  the  artificial  Vauxhall !  People  knew  not  what  to  make 
of  it.  They  took  it  for  a  piece  of  the  Vauxhall  firework  ; 
alas,  it  let  itself  be  so  taken,  though  struggling  half-blindly, 
as  in  bitterness  of  death,  against  that !  Perhaps  no  man 
had  such  a  false  reception  from  his  fellow-men.  Once  more 
a  very  wasteful  life-drama  was  enacted  under  the  sun. 

The  tragedy  of  Burns's  life  is  known  to  all  of  you.  Surely 
we  .may  say,  if  discrepancy  between  place  held  and  place 
merited  constitute  perverseness  of  lot  for  a  man,  no  lot  could 
be  more  perverse  than  Burns's.  Among  those  second-hand 
acting-figures,  mimes  for  most  part,  of  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury, once  more  a  giant  Original  Man;  one  of  those  men 
who  reach  down  to  the  perennial  Deeps,  who  take  rank  with 
the  Heroic  among  men  :  and  he  was  born  in  a  poor  Ayrshire 
hut.  The  largest  soul  of  all  the  British  lands  came  among 
us  in  the  shape  of  a  hard-handed  Scottish  Peasant. 

His  Father,  a  poor  toiling  man,  tried  various  things ;  did 
not  succeed  in  any;  was  involved  in  continual  difficulties. 
The  Steward,  Factor  as  the  Scotch  call  him,  used  to  send 
letters  and  threatenings,  Burns  says,  "which  threw  us  all 
into  tears."  The  brave,  hard-toiling,  hard-suffering  Father, 
his  brave  heroine  of  a  wife ;  and  those  children,  of  whom 
Robert  was  one !  In  this  Earth,  so  wide  otherwise,  no 
shelter  for  them.  The  letters  "threw  us  all  into  tears:" 
figure  it.  The  brave  Father,  I  say  always;  —  a  silent  Hero 
and  Poet;  without  whom  the  son  had  never  been  a  speaking 
one  !  Burns's  Schoolmaster  came  afterwards  to  London, 
learnt  what  good   society  was;    but    declares   that  in  no 


2IO  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

meeting  of  men  did  he  ever  enjoy  better  discourse  than  at 
the  hearth  of  this  peasant.  And  his  poor  "seven  acres  of 
nursery-ground,"  —  not  that,  nor  the  miserable  patch  of  clay- 
farm,  nor  any  thing  he  tried  to  get  a  living  by,  would  prosper 
with  him;  he  had  a  sore  unequal  battle  all  his  days.  But 
he  stood  to  it  valiantly ;  a  wise,  faithful,  unconquerable  man ; 
—  swallowing  down  how  many  sore  sufferings  daily  into 
silence  ;  fighting  like  an  unseen  Hero,  —  nobody  publishing 
newspaper  paragraphs  about  his  nobleness ;  voting  pieces 
of  plate  to  him  !  However,  he  was  not  lost :  nothing  is  lost. 
Robert  is  there  ;  the  outcome  of  him,  —  and  indeed  of  many 
generations  of  such  as  him. 

This  Burns  appeared  under  every  disadvantage :  unin- 
structed,  poor,  born  only  to  hard  manual  toil;  and  writing, 
when  it  came  to  that,  in  a  rustic  special  dialect,  known  only 
to  a  small  province  of  the  country  he  lived  in.  Had  he 
written,  even  what  he  did  write,  in  the  general  language  of 
England,  I  doubt  not  he  had  already  become  universally 
recognized  as  being,  or  capable  to  be,  one  of  our  greatest 
men.  That  he  should  have  tempted  so  many  to  penetrate 
through  the  rough  husk  of  that  dialect  of  his,  is  proof  that 
there  lay  something  far  from  common  within  it.  He  has 
gained  a  certain  recognition,  and  is  continuing  to  do  so 
over  all  quarters  of  our  wide  Saxon  world :  wheresoever  a 
Saxon  dialect  is  spoken,  it  begins  to  be  understood,  by 
personal  inspection  of  this  and  the  other,  that  one  of  the 
most  considerable  Saxon  men  of  the  Eighteenth  century 
was  an  Ayrshire  Peasant  named  Robert  Burns.  Yes,  I  will 
say,  here  too  was  a  piece  of  the  right  Saxon  stuff:  strong 
as  the  Harz-rock,  rooted  in  the  depths  of  the  world  ;  —  rock, 
yet  with  wells  of  living  softness  in  it!  A  wild  impetuous 
whirlwind  of  passion  and  faculty  slumbered  quiet  there  ; 
such  heavenly  melody  dwelling  in  the  heart  of  it.     A  noble 


'AN  AYRSH1RK  PEASANT,   NAMED  KOBERT  BURNS." — Page  2IO. 


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THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OE  LETTERS.  211 

rough  genuineness  ;  homely,  rustic,  honest ;  true  simplicity 
of  strength;  with  its  lightning-fire,  with  its  soft  dewy  pity; 
—  like  the  old  Norse  Thor,  the  Peasant-god  ! 

Burns's  Brother  Gilbert,  a  man  of  much  sense  and  worth, 
has  told  me  that  .Robert,  in  his  young  days,  in  spite  of  their 
hardship,  was  usually  the  gayest  of  speech  ;  a  fellow  of 
infinite  frolic,  laughter,  sense  and  heart  ;  far  pleasanter  to 
hear  there,  stript  cutting  peats  in  the  bog,  or  suchlike,  than 
he  ever  afterwards  knew  him.  I  can  well  believe  it.  This 
basis  of  mirth  {"fond  gaillard;'  as  old  Marquis  Mirabeau 
calls  it),  a  primal  element  of  sunshine  and  joyfulness,  coupled 
with  his  other  deep  and  earnest  qualities,  is  one  of  the  most 
attractive  characteristics  of  Burns.  A  large  fund  of  Hope 
dwells  in  him;  spite  of  his  tragical  history,  he  is  not  a 
mourning  man.  He  shakes  his  sorrows  gallantly  aside; 
bounds  forth  victorious  over  them.  It  is  as  the  lion  shak- 
ing "dewdrops  from  his  mane;"  as  the  swift-bounding 
horse,  that  laughs  at  the  shaking  of  the  spear.  —  But  indeed, 
Hope,  Mirth,  of  the  sort  like  Burns's,  are  they  not  the  out- 
come properly  of  warm  generous  affection,  —  such  as  is  the 
beginning  of  all  to  every  man  ? 

You  would  think  it  strange  if  I  called  Burns  the  most 
gifted  British  soul  we  had  in  all  that  century  of  his  :  and 
yet  I  believe  the  day  is  coming  when  there  will  be  little 
danger  in  saying  so.  His  writings,  all  that  he  did  under 
such  obstructions,  are  only  a  poor  fragment  of  him.  Pro- 
fessor Stewart  remarked  very  justly,  what  indeed  is  true  of 
all  Poets  good  for  much,  that  his  poetry  was  not  any  partic- 
ular faculty ;  but  the  general  result  of  a  naturally  vigorous 
original  mind  expressing  itself  in  that  way.  Burns's  gifts, 
expressed  in  conversation,  are  the  theme  of  all  that  ever 
heard  him.  All  kinds  of  gifts :  from'  the  gracefulest  utter- 
ances of  courtesy,  to  the  highest  fire  of  passionate  speech ; 


212  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

loud  floods  of  mirth,  soft  wailings  of  affection,  laconic 
emphasis,  clear  piercing  insight;  all  was  in  him.  Witt) 
duchesses  celebrate  him  as  a  man  whose  speech  "led  them 
off  their  feet."  This  is  beautiful :  but  still  more  beautiful 
that  which  Mr.  Lockhart  has  recorded,  which  I  have  more 
than  once  alluded  to,  How  the  waiters  and  hostlers  at  inns 
would  get  out  of  bed,  and  come  crowding  to  hear  this  man 
speak!  Waiters  and  hostlers: — they  too  were  men,  and 
here  was  a  man  !  I  have  heard  much  about  his  speech ; 
but  one  of  the  best  things  I  ever  heard  of  it  was,  last  year, 
from  a  venerable  gentleman  long  familiar  with  him.  That 
it  was  speech  distinguished  by  always  having  something  in 
it.  "  He  spoke  rather  little  than  much,"  this  old  man  told 
me ;  "  sat  rather  silent  in  those  early  days,  as  in  the  com- 
pany of  persons  above  him  ;  and  always  when  he  did  speak, 
it  was  to  throw  new  light  on  the  matter."  I  know  not  why 
any  one  should  ever  speak  otherwise !  —  But  if  we  look  at 
his  general  force  of  soul,  his  healthy  robustness  every  way, 
the  rugged  downrightness,  penetration,  generous  valor  and 
manfulness  that  was  in  him,  —  where  shall  we  readily  find 
a  better-gifted  man  ? 

Among  the  great  men  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  I  some- 
times feel  as  if  Burns  might  be  found  to  resemble  Mirabeau 
more  than  any  other.  They  differ  widely  in  vesture  ;  yet 
look  at  them  intrinsically.  There  is  the  same  burly  thick- 
necked  strength  of  body  as  of  soul  ;  —  built,  in  both  cases, 
on  what  the  old  Marquis  calls  a  fond  gaillard.  By  nature, 
by  course  of  breeding,  indeed  by  nation,  Mirabeau  has  much 
more  of  bluster ;  a  noisy,  forward,  unresting  man.  But  the 
characteristic  of  Mirabeau  too  is  veracity  and  sense,  power 
of  true  insight,  superiority  of  vision.  The  thing  that  he  says 
is  worth  remembering.  It  is  a  flash  of  insight  into  some 
object  or  other;  so  do  both  these  men  speak.    The  same 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.         213 

raging  passions;  capable  too  in  both  of  manifesting  them- 
selves as  the  tenderest  noble  affections.  Wit,  wild  laughter, 
energy,  directness,  sincerity :  these  were  in  both.  The  types 
of  the  two  men  are  not  dissimilar.  Burns  too  could  have 
governed,  debated  in  National  Assemblies ;  politicized,  as 
few  could.  Alas,  the  courage  which  had  to  exhibit  itself 
in  capture  of  smuggling  schooners  in  the  Solway  Frith ;  in 
keeping  silence  over  so  much,  where  no  good  speech,  but 
only  inarticulate  rage,  was  possible :  this  might  have  bel- 
lowed forth  Ushers  de  Breze*  and  the  like  ;  and  made  itself 
visible  to  all  men,  in  managing  of  kingdoms,  in  ruling  of 
great jever-memorable  epochs  !  But  they  said  to  him  reprov- 
ingly, his  Official  Superiors  said,  and  wrote:  "You  are  to 
work,  not  think."  Of  your  thinking-i acuity,  the  greatest  in 
this  land,  we  have  no  need ;  you  are  to  gauge  beer  there ;  for 
that  only  are  you  wanted.  Very  notable  ;  —  and  worth  men- 
tioning, though  we  know  what  is  to  be  said  and  answered ! 
As  if  Thought,  Power  of  Thinking,  were  not,  at  all  times,  in 
all  places  and  situations  of  the  world,  precisely  the  thing 
that  was  wanted.  The  fatal  man,  is  he  not  always  the 
««thinking  man,  the  man  who  cannot  think  and  see j  but 
only  grope,  and  hallucinate,  and  missee  the  nature  of  the 
thing  he  works  with  ?  He  missees  it,  mistakes  it  as  we 
say ;  takes  it  for  one  thing,  and  it  is  another  thing,  —  and 
leaves  him  standing  like  a  Futility  there !  He  is  the  fatal 
man ;  unutterably  fatal,  put  in  the  high  places  of  men.  — 
"  Why  complain  of  this  ?  "  say  some  :  "  Strength  is  mourn- 
fully denied  its  arena ;  that  was  true  from  of  old."  Doubt- 
less ;  and  the  worse  for  the  arena,  answer  I !  Complaining 
profits  little ;  stating  of  the  truth  may  profit.  That  a  Europe, 
with  its  French  Revolution  just  breaking  out,  finds  no  need 
of  a  Burns  except  for  gauging  beer,  —  is  a  thing  I,  for  one, 
cannot  rejoice  at ! 


214  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Once  more  we  have  to  say  here,  that  the  chief  quality  of 
Burns  is  the  sincerity  of  him.  So  in  his  Poetry,  so  in  his 
Life.  The  Song  he  sings  is  not  of  fantasticalities  ;  it  is  of  a 
thing  felt,  really  there;  the  prime  merit  of  this,  as  of  all  in 
him,  and  of  his  Life  generally,  is  truth.  The  Life  of  Burns 
is  what  we  may  call  a  great  tragic  sincerity.  A  sort  of  sav- 
age sincerity,  —  not  cruel,  far  from  that ;  but  wild,  wrestling 
naked  with  the  truth  of  things.  In  that  sense,  there  is 
something  of  the  savage  in  all  great  men. 

Hero-worship,  —  Odin,  Burns?  Well;  these  Men  of  Let- 
ters too  were  not  without  a  kind  of  Hero-worship:  but  what 
a  strange  condition  has  that  got  into  now !  The  waiters  and 
hostlers  of  Scotch  inns,  prying  about  the  door,  eager  to  catch 
any  word  that  fell  from  Burns,  were  doing  unconscious 
reverence  to  the  Heroic.  Johnson  had  his  Boswell  for  wor- 
shipper. Rousseau  had  worshippers  enough  ;  princes  calling 
on  him  in  his  mean  garret;  the  great,  the  beautiful  doing 
reverence  to  the  poor  moonstruck  man.  For  himself  a  most 
portentous  contradiction ;  the  two  ends  of  his  life  not  to  be 
brought  into  harmony.  He  sits  at  the  tables  of  grandees ; 
and  has  to  copy  music  for  his  own  living.  He  cannot  even 
get  his  music  copied.  "  By  dint  of  dining  out,"  says  he,  "  I 
run  the  risk  of  dying  by  starvation  at  home."  For  his  wor- 
shippers too  a  most  questionable  thing!  If  doing  Hero- 
worship  well  or  badly  be  the  test  of  vital  well-being  or  ill- 
being  to  a  generation,  can  we  say  that  these  generations  are 
very  first-rate  ?  —  And  yet  our  heroic  Men  of  Letters  do  teach, 
govern,  are  kings,  priests,  or  what  you  like  to  call  them; 
intrinsically  there  is  no  preventing  it  by  any  means  whatever. 
The  world  has  to  obey  him  who  thinks  and  sees  in -the  world. 
The  world  can  alter  the  manner  of  that ;  can  either  have  it 
as  blessed  continuous  summer  sunshine,  or  as  unblessed 
black  thunder  and  tornado,  —  with  unspeakable  difference  of 


WAITERS  AND  HOSTLERS  '.    THEY  TOO  WERE  MEN,   AND  HERE 
WAS  A   MAN." Page  212. 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  21$ 

profit  for  the  world!  The  manner  of  it  is  very  alterable; 
the  matter  and  fact  of  it  is  not  alterable  by  any  power  under 
the  sky.  Light;  or,  failing  that,  lightning:  the  world  can 
take  its  choice.  Not  whether  we  call  an  Odin  god,  prophet, 
priest,  or  what  we  call  him;  but  whether  we  believe  the 
word  he  tells  us :  there  it  all  lies.  If  it  be  a  true  word,  we 
shall  have  to  believe  it ;  believing  it,  we  shall  have  to  do  it. 
What  name  or  welcome  we  give  him  or  it,  is  a  point  that 
concerns  ourselves  mainly.  //,  the  new  Truth,  new  deeper 
revealing  of  the  Secret  of  this  Universe,  is  verily  of  the 
nature  of  a  message  from  on  high ;  and  must  and  will  have 
itself  obeyed. " 

My  last  remark  is  on  that  notablest  phasis  of  Burn's  his- 
tory,—  his  visit  to  Edinburgh.  Often  it  seems  to  me  as  if 
his  demeanor  there  were  the  highest  proof  he  gave  of  what 
a  fund  of  worth  and  genuine  manhood  was  in  him.  If  we 
think  of  it,  few  heavier  burdens  could  be  laid  on  the  strength 
of  a  man.  So  sudden  ;  all  common  Liom'sm,  which  ruins  in- 
numerable men,  was  as  nothing  to  this.  It  is  as  if  Napoleon 
had  been  made  a  King  of,  not  gradually,  but  at  once  from 
the  Artillery  Lieutenancy  in  the  Regiment  La  Fere.  Burns, 
still  only  in  his  twenty-seventh  year,  is  no  longer  even  a 
ploughman ;  he  is  flying  to  the  West  Indies  to  escape  dis- 
grace and  a  jail.  This  month  he  is  a  ruined  peasant,  his 
wages  seven  pounds  a  year,  and  these  gone  from  him :  next 
month  he  is  in  the  blaze  of  rank  and  beauty,  handing  down 
jewelled  Duchesses  to  dinner;  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes! 
Adversity  is  sometimes  hard  upon  a  man ;  but  for  one  man 
who  can  stand  prosperity,  there  are  a  hundred  that  will  stand 
adversity.  I  admire  much  the  way  in  which  Burns  met  all 
this.  Perhaps  no  man  one  could  point  out,  was  ever  so 
sorely  tried,  and  so  little  forgot  himself.  Tranquil,  unaston- 
ished;  not  abashed,  not  inflated,  neither  awkwardness  nor 


2l6  LECTURES  OX  HEROES. 

affectation:  he  feels  that  lie  there  is  the  man  Robert  Burns; 
that  the  "rank  is  but  the  guinea-stamp;  "  that  the  celebrity 
is  but  the  candle-light,  which  will  show  what  man,  not  in  the 
least  make  him  a  better  or  other  man  !  Alas,  it  may  readily, 
unless  he  look  to  it,  make  him  a  worse  man;  a  wretched 
inflated  wind-bag,  —  inflated  till  he  burst,  and  become  a  dead 
lion ;  for  whom,  as  some  one  has  said,  "  there  is  no  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body ; H  worse  than  a  living  dog !  —  Burns  is 
admirable  here. 

And  yet,  alas,  as  I  have  observed  elsewhere,  these  Lion- 
hunters  were  the  ruin  and  death  of  Burns.  It  was  they  that 
rendered  it  impossible  for  him  to  live !  They  gathered  round 
him  in  his  Farm ;  hindered  his  industry ;  no  place  was  re- 
mote enough  from  them.  He  could  not  get  his  Lionism 
forgotten,  honestly  as  he  was  disposed  to  do  so.  He  falls 
into  discontents,  into  miseries,  faults ;  the  world  getting  ever 
more  desolate  for  him;  health,  character,  peace  of  mind  all 
gone ;  —  solitary  enough  now.  It  is  tragical  to  think  of ! 
These  men  came  but  to  see  him ;  it  was  out  of  no  sympathy 
with  him,  nor  no  hatred  to  him.  They  came  to  get  a  little 
amusement:  they  got  their  amusement;  —  and  the  Hero's 
life  went  for  it ! 

Richter  says,  in  the  Island  of  Sumatra  there  is  a  kind  of 
"  Light-chafers,"  large  Fire-flies,  which  people  stick  upon 
spits,  and  illuminate  the  ways  with  at  night.  Persons  of  con- 
dition can  thus  travel  with  a  pleasant  radiance,  which  they 
much  admire.     Great  honor  to  the  Fire-flies  !     But  — !  — 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  2\J 


LECTURE    VI. 

THE  HERO  AS  KING.    CROMWELL,  NAPOLEON:   MODERN 
REVOLUTIONISM. 

[Friday,  22d  May,  /840.] 

We  come  now  to  the  last  form  of  Heroism ;  that  which  we 
call  Kingship.  The  Commander  over  Men;  he  to  whose 
will  our  wills  are  to  be  subordinated,  and  loyally  surrender 
themselves,  and  find  their  welfare  in  doing  so,  may  be  reck- 
oned the  most  important  of  Great  Men.  He  is  practically 
the  summary  for  us  of  all  the  various  figures  of  Heroism ; 
Priest,  Teacher,  whatsoever  of  earthly  or  of  spiritual  dignity 
we  can  fancy  to  reside  in  a  man,  embodies  itself  here,  to 
command  over  us,  to  furnish  us  with  constant  practical 
teaching,  to  tell  us  for  the  day  and  hour  what  we  are  to  do. 
He  is  called  Rex,  Regulator,  Roi :  our  own  name  is  still  bet- 
ter ;  King,  K tinning,  which  means  Gz;/-ning,  Able-man. 

Numerous  considerations,  pointing  towards  deep,  question- 
able, and  indeed  unfathomable  regions,  present  themselves 
here :  on  the  most  of  which  we  must  resolutely  for  the  pres- 
ent forbear  to  speak  at  all.  As  Burke  said  that  perhaps  fair 
Trial  by  Jury  was  the  soul  of  Government,  and  that  all 
legislation,  administration,  parliamentary  debating,  and  the 
rest  of  it,  went  on,  in  "order  to  bring  twelve  impartial  men 
into  a  jury-box;  "  —  so,  by  much  stronger  reason,  may  I  say 
here,  that  the  finding  of  your  Ableman  and  getting  him  in- 


2l8  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

vested  with  the  symbols  of  ability,  with  dignity,  worship 
(wvrth-ship),  royalty,  kinghood,  or  whatever  we  call  it,  so 
that  he  may  actually  have  room  to  guide  according  to  his 
faculty  of  doing  it,  —  is  the  business,  well  or  ill  accomplished, 
of  all  social  procedure  whatsoever  in  this  world  !  Hustings- 
speeches,  Parliamentary  motions,  Reform  Bills,  French  Rev- 
olutions, all  mean  at  heart  this;  or  else  nothing.  Find  in 
any  country  the  Ablest  Man  that  exists  there ;  raise  him  to 
the  supreme  place,  and  loyally  reverence  him :  you  have  a 
perfect  government  for  that  country :  no  ballot-box,  parlia- 
mentary eloquence,  voting,  constitution-building,  or  other 
machinery  whatsoever  can  improve  it  a  whit.  It  is  in  the 
perfect  state ;  an  ideal  country.  The  Ablest  Man  ;  he  means 
also  the  truest-hearted,  justest,  the  Noblest  Man :  what  he 
tells  us  to  do  must  be  precisely  the  wisest,  fittest,  that  we 
could  anywhere  or  anyhow  learn;  —  the  thing  which  it  will 
in  all  ways  behove  us,  with  right  loyal  thankfulness,  and 
nothing  doubting,  to  do !  Our  doing  and  life  were  then,  so 
far  as  government  could  regulate  it,  well  regulated ;  that 
were  the  ideal  of  constitutions. 

Alas,  we  know  very  well  that  Ideals  can  never  be  com- 
pletely embodied  in  practice.  Ideals  must  ever  lie  a  very 
great  way  off ;  and  we  will  right  thankfully  content  ourselves 
with  any  not  intolerable  approximation  thereto!  Let  no 
man,  as  Schiller  says,  too  querulously  "  measure  by  a  scale 
of  perfection  the  meagre  product  of  reality "  in  this  poor 
world  of  ours.  We  will  esteem  him  no  wise  man  ;  we  will 
esteem  him  a  sickly,  discontented,  foolish  man.  And  yet,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten  that  Ideals  do 
exist ;  that  if  they  be  not  approximated  to  at  all,  the  whole 
matter  goes  to  wreck!  Infallibly.  No  bricklayer  builds  a 
wall  perfectly  perpendicular,  mathematically  this  is  not  pos- 
sible ;  a  certain  degree  of  perpendicularity  suffices  him ;  and 


THE  HEEO  AS  A'EVO.  2\<) 

he,  like  a  good  bricklayer,  avIio  must  have  clone  with  his  job, 
leaves  it  so.  And  yet  if  he  sway  too  much  from  the  perpen- 
dicular; above  all,  if  he  throw  plummet  and  level  quite  away 
from  him,  and  pile  brick  on  brick  heedless,  just  as  it  comes 
to  hand  — !  Such  bricklayer,  I  think,  is  in  a  bad  way.  He 
has  forgotten  himself :  but  the  Law  of  Gravitation  does  not 
forget  to  act  on  him ;  he  and  his  wall  rush  down  into  con- 
fused welter  of  ruin ! 

This  is  the  history  of  all  rebellions,  French  Revolutions, 
social  explosions  in  ancient  or  modern  times.  You  have  put 
the  too  cD/able  Man  at  the  head  of  affairs  !  The  too  ignoble, 
unvaliant,  fatuous  man.  You  have  forgotten  that  there  is 
any  rule,  or  natural  necessity  whatever,  of  putting  the  Able 
Man  there.  Brick  must  lie  on  brick  as  it  may  and  can. 
Unable  Simulacrum  of  Ability,  quack,  in  a  word,  must  adjust 
himself  with  quack,  in  all  manner  of  administration  of  human 
things;  —  which  accordingly  lie  unadministered,  fermenting 
into  unmeasured  masses  of  failure,  of  indigent  misery:  in 
the  outward,  and  in  the  inward  or  spiritual,  miserable  mil- 
lions stretch  out  the  hand  for  their  due  supply,  and  it  is  not 
there.  The  "law  of  gravitation"  acts;  Nature's  laws  do 
none  of  them  forget  to  act.  The  miserable  millions  burst 
forth  into  Sansculottism,  or  some  other  sort  of  madness : 
bricks  and  bricklayer  lie  as  a  fatal  chaos  ! 

Much  sorry  stuff,  written  some  hundred  years  ago  or  more, 
about  the  "  Divine  right  of  Kings,"  moulders  unread  now  in 
the  Public  Libraries  of  this  country.  Far  be  it  from  us  to 
disturb  the  calm  process  by  which  it  is  disappearing  harm- 
lessly from  the  earth,  in  those  repositories  !  At  the  same 
time,  not  to  let  the  immense  rubbish  go  without  leaving  us, 
as  it  ought,  some  soul  of  it  behind  —  I  will  say  that  it  did 
mean  something;  something  true,  which  it  is  important  for 
us  and  all  men  to  keep  in  mind.     To  assert  that  in  whatever 


220  LECTURES  OX  HEROES. 

man  you  chose  to  lay  hold  of  (by  this  or  the  other  plan  of 
clutching  at  him);  and  clapt  a  round  piece  of  metal  on  the 
head  of,  and  called  King,  —  there  straightway  came  to  reside 
a  divine  virtue,  so  that  he  became  a  kind  of  god,  and  a  Divin- 
ity inspired  him  with  faculty  and  right  to  rule  over  you  to  all 
lengths:  this,  —  what  can  we  do  with  this  but  leave  it  to  rot 
silently  in  the  Public  Libraries  ?  But  I  will  say  withal,  and 
that  is  what  these  Divine-right  men  meant,  That  in  Kings. 
and  in  all  human  Authorities,  and  relations  that  men  god- 
created  can  form  among  each  other,  there  is  verily  either  a 
Divine  Right  or  else  a  Diabolic  Wrong  ;  one  or  the  other  of 
these  two !  For  it  is  false  altogether,  what  the  last  Sceptical 
Century  taught  us,  that  this  world  is  a  steam-engine.  There 
is  a  God  in  this  world;  and  a  God's  sanction,  or  else  the 
violation  of  such,  does  look  out  from  all  ruling  and  obedi 
ence,  from  all  moral  acts  of  men.  There  is  no  act  more 
moral  between  men  than  that  of  rule  and  obedience.  Woe 
to  him  that  claims  obedience  when  it  is  not  due ;  woe  to  him 
that  refuses  it  when  it  is !  God's  law  is  in  that,  I  say,  how- 
ever the  Parchment-laws  may  run :  there  is  a  Divine  Right 
or  else  a  Diabolic  Wrong  at  the  heart  of  every  claim  that 
one  man  makes  upon  another. 

It  can  do  none  of  us  harm  to  reflect  on  this :  in  all  the 
relations  of  life  it  will  concern  us :  in  Loyalty  and  Royalty, 
the  highest  of  these.  I  esteem  the  modern  error,  That  all 
goes  by  self-interest  and  the  checking  and  balancing  of 
greedy  knaveries,  and  that,  in  short,  there  is  nothing  divine 
whatever  in  the  association  of  men,  a  still  more  despicable 
error,  natural  as  it  is  to  an  unbelieving  century,  than  that  of 
a  "divine  right"  in  people  called  Kings.  I  say,  Find  me  the 
true  Konning,  King,  or  Able-man,  and  he  has  a  divine  right 
over  me.  That  we  knew  in  some  tolerable  measure  how  to 
find  him,  and  that  all  men  were  ready  to  acknowledge  his 


doubt.'' — Page  221 


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OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  221 

divine  right  when  found :  this  is  precisely  the  healing  which 
a  sick  world  is  everywhere,  in  these  ages,  seeking  after! 
The  true  King,  as  guide  of  the  practical,  has  ever  something 
of  the  Pontiff  in  him, — guide  of  the  spiritual,  from  which 
all  practice  has  its  rise.  This  too  is  a  true  saying,  That  the 
King\%  head  of  the  Church.  —  But  we  will  leave  the  Polemic 
stuff  of  a  dead  century  to  lie  quiet  on  its  book-shelves. 

Certainly  it  is  a  fearful  business,  that  of  having  your  Able- 
man  to  seek,  and  not  knowing  in  what  manner  to  proceed 
about  it!  That  is  the  world's  sad  predicament  in  these 
times  of  ours.  They  are  times  of  revolution,  and  have  long 
been.  The  bricklayer  with  his  bricks,  no  longer  heedful  of 
plummet  or  the  law  of  gravitation,  have  toppled,  tumbled, 
and  it  all  welters  as  we  see !  But  the  beginning  of  it  was 
not  the  French  Revolution ;  that  is  rather  the  end,  we  can 
hope.  It  were  truer  to  say,  the  beginning  was  three  centu- 
ries farther  back :  in  the  Reformation  of  Luther.  That  the 
thing  which  still  called  itself  Christian  Church  had  become  a 
Falsehood,  and  brazenly  went  about  pretending  to  pardon 
men's  sins  for  metallic  coined  money,  and  to  do  much  else 
which  in  the  everlasting  truth  of  Nature  it  did  not  now  do : 
here  lay  the  vital  malady.  The  inward  being  wrong,  all  out- 
ward went  ever  more  and  more  wrong.  Belief  died  away ; 
all  was  Doubt,  Disbelief.  The  builder  cast  away  his  plum- 
met; said  to  himself,  "What  is  gravitation?  Brick  lies  on 
brick  there  !  "  Alas,  does  it  not  still  sound  strange  to  many 
of  us,  the  assertion  that  there  is  a  God's-truth  in  the  business 
of  god-created  men;  that  all  is  not  a  kind  of  grimace,  an 
"expediency,"  diplomacy,  one  knows  not  what! 

From  that  first  necessary  assertion  of  Luther's,  "  You,  self- 
styled  Papa,  you  are  no  Father  in  God  at  all;  you  are  —  a 
Chimera,  whom  I  know  not  how  to  name  in  polite  language!  " 


222  LECTURES  OX  HEROES. 

—  from  that  onwards  to  the  shout  which  rose  round  Camille 
Desmoulins  in  the  Palais-Royal,  "Aux  armes  /"  when  the 
people  had  burst  up  against  all  manner  of  Chimeras,  —  I  find 
a  natural  historical  sequence.  That  shout  too,  so  frightful, 
half-infernal,  was  a  great  matter.  Once  more  the  voice  of 
awakened  nations;  —  starting  confusedly,  as  out  of  night- 
mare, as  out  of  death-sleep,  into  some  dim  feeling  that  Life 
was  real ;  that  God's  world  was  not  an  expediency  and 
diplomacy!  Infernal:  —  yes,  since  they  would  not  have  it 
otherwise.  Infernal,  since  not  celestial  or  terrestrial !  Hol- 
lowness,  insincerity,  has  to  cease;  sincerity  of  some  sort  has 
to  begin.  Cost  what  it  may,  reigns  of  terror,  horrors  of 
French  Revolution  or  what  else,  we  .have  to  return  to  truth. 
Here  is  a  Truth,  as  I  said :  a  Truth  clad  in  hellfire,  since 
they  would  not  but  have  it  so ! 

A  common  theory  among  considerable  parties  of  men  in 
England  and  elsewhere  used  to  be,  that  the  French  Nation 
had,  in  those  days,  as  it  were  gone  mad;  that  the  French 
Revolution  was  a  general  act  of  insanity,  a  temporary  con- 
version of  France  and  large  sections  of  the  world  into  a  kind 
of  Bedlam.  The  Event  had  risen  and  raged ;  but  was  a 
madness  and  nonentity, — gone  now  happily  into  the  region 
of  Dreams  and  the  Picturesque!  —  To  such  comfortable 
philosophers,  the  Three  Days  of  July,  1830,  must  have  been 
a  surprising  phenomenon.  Here  is  the  French  Nation 
risen  again,  in  musketry  and  death-struggle,  out  shooting 
and  being  shot,  to  make  that  same  mad  French  Revolution 
good  !  The  sons  and  grandsons  of  those  men,  it  would 
seem,  persist  in  the  enterprise  :  they  do  not  disown  it ;  they 
will  have  it  made  good  ;  will  have  themselves  shot,  if  it  be 
not  made  good !  To  philosophers  who  had  made  up  their 
life-system  on  that  u  madness "  quietus,  no  phenomenon 
could    be   more   alarming.      Poor    Niebuhr,   they  say,   the 


THE  HERO  AS  KTNG.  223 

Prussian  Professor  and  Historian,  fell  broken-hearted  in 
consequence ;  sickened,  if  we  can  believe  it,  and  died  of 
the  Three  Days  !  It  was  surely  not  a  very  heroic  death  ;  — 
little  better  than  Racine's,  dying  because  Louis  Fourteenth 
looked  sternly  on  him  once.  The  world  had  stood  some 
considerable  shocks,  in  its  time ;  might  have  been  expected 
to  survive  the  Three  Days  too,  and  be  found  turning  on  its 
axis  after  even  them!  The  Three  Days  told  all  mortals 
that  the  old  French  Revolution,  mad  as  it  might  look,  was 
not  a  transitory  ebullition  of  Bedlam,  but  a  genuine  product 
of  this  Earth  where  we  all  live ;  that  it  was  verily  a  Fact, 
and  that  the  world  in  general  would  do  well  everywhere  to 
regard  it  as  such. 

Truly,  without  the  French  Revolution,  one  would  not  know 
what  to  make  of  an  age  like  this  at  all.  We  will  hail  the 
French  Revolution,  as  shipwrecked  mariners  might  the  stern- 
est rock,  in  a  world  otherwise  all  of  baseless  sea  and  waves. 
A  true  Apocalypse,  though  a  terrible  one,  to  this  false  with- 
ered artificial  time ;  testifying  once  more  that  Nature  is 
//^/Vmatural ;  if  not  divine,  then  diabolic ;  that  Semblance 
is  not  Reality ;  that  it  has  to  become  Reality,  or  the  world 
will  take  fire  under  it,  —  burn  it  into  what  it  is,  namely  Noth- 
ing !  Plausibility  has  ended ;  empty  Routine  has  ended ; 
much  has  ended.  This,  as  with  a  Trump  of  Doom,  has 
been  proclaimed  to  all  men.  They  are  the  wisest  who  will 
learn  it  soonest.  Long  confused  generations  before  it  be 
learned ;  peace  impossible  till  it  be !  The  earnest  man, 
surrounded,  as  ever,  with  a  world  of  inconsistencies,  can 
await  patiently,  patiently  strive  to  do  his  work,  in  the  midst 
of  that.  Sentence  of  Death  is  written  down  in  Heaven 
against  all  that;  sentence  of  Death  is  now  proclaimed  on 
the  Earth  against  it :  this  he  with  his  eyes  may  see.  And 
surely,  I  should  say,  considering  the  other  side  of  the  matter, 


224  LECTURES   OAT  HEROES. 

what  enormous  difficulties  lie  there,  and  how  fast,  fearfully 
fast,  in  all  countries,  the  inexorable  demand  for  solution  of 
them  is  pressing  on,  —  he  may  easily  find  other  work  to  do 
than  laboring  in  the  Sansculottic  province  at  this  time  of 
day! 

To  me,  in  these  circumstances,  that  of  "  Hero-worship  " 
becomes  a  fact  inexpressibly  precious ;  the  most  solacing 
fact  one  sees  in  the  world  at  present.  There  is  an  everlast- 
ing hope  in  it  for  the  management  of  the  world.  Had  all 
traditions,  arrangements,  creeds,  societies,  that  men  ever 
instituted,  sunk  away,  this  would  remain.  The  certainty  of 
Heroes  being  sent  us  ;  our  faculty,  our  necessity,  to  reverence 
Heroes  when  sent :  it  shines  like  a  polestar  through  smoke- 
clouds,  dust-clouds,  and  all  manner  of  down-rushing  and 
conflagration. 

Hero-worship  would  have  sounded  very  strange  to  those 
workers  and  fighters  in  the  French  Revolution.  Not  rever- 
ence for  Great  Men ;  not  any  hope  or  belief,  or  even  wish, 
that  Great  Men  could  again  appear  in  the  world  !  Nature, 
turned  into  a  "  Machine,"  was  as  if  effete  now ;  could  not 
any  longer  produce  Great  Men :  —  I  can  tell  her,  she  may 
give  up  the  trade  altogether,  then ;  we  cannot  do  without 
Great  Men !  —  But  neither  have  I  any  quarrel  with  that  of 
"  Liberty  and  Equality; "  with  the  faith  that,  wise  great  men 
being  impossible,  a  level  immensity  of  foolish  small  men 
would  suffice.  It  was  a  natural  faith  then  and  there.  "  Lib- 
erty and  Equality ;  no  Authority  needed  any  longer.  Hero- 
worship,  reverence  for  such  Authorities,  has  proved  false,  is 
itself  a  falsehood ;  no  more  of  it !  We  have  had  such  for- 
geries, we  will  now  trust  nothing.  So  many  base  plated 
coins  passing  in  the  market,  the  belief  has  now  become 
common  that  no  gold  any  longer  exists,  —  and  even  that  we 
can  do  very  well  without  gold  !  "     I  find  this,  among  other 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  225 

things,  in  that  universal  cry  of  Liberty  and  Equality;  and 
find  it  very  natural,  as  matters  then  stood. 

And  yet  surely  it  is  but  the  transition  from  false  to  true. 
Considered  as  the  whole  truth,  it  is  false  altogether ;  the 
product  of  entire  sceptical  blindness,  as  yet  only  struggling 
to  see.  Hero-worship  exists  forever,  and  everywhere:  not 
Loyalty  alone ;  it  extends  from  divine  adoration  down  to  the 
lowest  practical  regions  of  life.  M  Bending  before  men,"  if 
it  is  not  to  be  a  mere  empty  grimace,  better  dispensed  with 
than  practised,  is  Hero-worship,  —  a  recognition  that  there 
does  dwell  in  that  presence  of  our  brother  something  divine  ; 
that  every  created  man,  as  Novalis  said,  is  a  "  revelation  in 
the  Flesh."  They  were  Poets  too,  that  devised  all  those 
graceful  courtesies  which  make  life  noble !  Courtesy  is  not 
a  falsehood  or  grimace  ;  it  need  not  be  such.  And  Loyalty, 
religious  Worship  itself,  are  still  possible  ;  nay  still  inevitable. 

May  we  not  say,  moreover,  while  so  many  of  our  late 
Heroes  have  worked  rather  as  revolutionary  men,  that 
nevertheless  every  Great  Man,  every  genuine  man,  is  by  the 
nature  of  him  a  son  of  Order,  not  of  Disorder?  It  is  a 
tragical  position  for  a  true  man  to  work  in  revolutions.  He 
seems  an  anarchist;  and  indeed  a  painful  element  of  anarchy 
does  incumber  him  at  every  step,  —  him  to  whose  whole  soul 
anarchy  is  hostile,  hateful.  His  mission  is  Order  ;  every 
man's  is.  He  is  here  to  make  what  was  disorderly,  chaotic, 
into  a  thing  ruled,  regular.  He  is  the  missionary  of  Order. 
Is  not  all  work  of  man  in  this  world  a  making  of  Order? 
The  carpenter  finds  rough  trees;  shapes  them,  constrains 
them  into  square  fitness,  into  purpose  and  use.  We  are  all 
born  enemies  of  Disorder:  it  is  tragical  for  us  all  to  be  con- 
cerned in  image-breaking  and  down-pulling;  for  the  Great 
Man,  more  a  man  than  we,  it  is  doubly  tragical. 

Thus  too  all  human  things,  maddest  French   Sansculot 


226  LECTURES   ON  HEROES. 

tisms,  do  and  must  work  towards  Order.  I  say,  there  is  not 
a  man  in  them,  raging  in  the  thickest  of  the  madness,  but  is 
impelled  withal,  at  all  moments,  towards  Order.  His  very 
life  means  that;  Disorder  is  dissolution,  death.  No  chaos 
but  it  seeks  a  centre  to  revolve  round.  While  man  is  man, 
some  Cromwell  or  Napoleon  is  the  necessary  finish  of  a 
Sansculottism.  —  Curious  :  in  those  days  when  Hero-worship 
was  the  most  incredible  thing  to  every  one,  how  it  does  come 
out  nevertheless,  and  assert  itself  practically,  in  a  way  which 
all  have  to  credit.  Divine  right,  take  it  on  the  great  scale, 
is  found  to  mean  divine  might  withal !  While  old  false 
Formulas  are  getting  trampled  everywhere  into  destruction, 
.new  genuine  Substances  unexpectedly  unfold  themselves 
indestructible.  In  rebellious  ages,  when  Kingship  itself 
seems  dead  and  abolished,  Cromwell,  Napoleon,  step  forth 
again  as  Kings.  The  history  of  these  men  is  what  we  have 
now  to  look  at,  as  our  last  phasis  of  Heroism.  The  old 
ages  are  brought  back  to  us ;  the  manner  in  which  Kings 
were  made,  and  Kingship  itself  first  took  rise,  is  again 
exhibited  in  the  history  of  these  Two. 

We  have  had  many  civil  wars  in  England ;  wars  of  Red 
and  White  Roses,  wars  of  Simon  de  Montfort;  wars  enough, 
which  are  not  very  memorable.  But  that  war  of  the  Puritans 
has  a  significance  which  belongs  to  no  one  of  the  others. 
Trusting  to  your  candor,  which  will  suggest  on  the  other 
side  what  I  have  not  room  to  say,  I  will  call  it  a  section  once 
more  of  that  great  universal  war  which  alone  makes  up  the 
true  History  of  the  World, — the  war  of  Belief  against  Un- 
belief! The  struggle  of  men  intent  on  the  real  essence 
ol  things,  against  men  intent  on  the  semblances  and  forms  of 
things.  The  Puritans,  to  many,  seem  mere  savage  Icono- 
clasts, fierce  destroyers  of  Forms ;  but  it  were  more  just  to 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  22? 

call  them  haters  of  untrue  Forms.  I  hope  we  know  how 
to  respect  Laud  and  his  King  as  well  as  them.  Poor  Laud 
seems  to  me  to  have  boen  weak  and  ill-starred,  not  dishon- 
est; an  unfortunate  Pedant  rather  than  any  thing  worse. 
His  "  Dreams  "  and  superstitions,  at  which  they  laugh  so, 
have  an  affectionate,  lovable  kind  of  character.  He  is  like 
a  College-Tutor,  whose  whole  world  is  forms,  College-rules ; 
whose  notion  is  that  these  are  the  life  and  safety  of  the 
world.  He  is  placed  suddenly,  with  that  unalterable  luckless 
notion  of  his,  at  the  head  not  of  a  College,  but  of  a  Nation, 
to  regulate  the  most  complex  deep-reaching  interests  of  men. 
He  thinks  they  ought  to  go  by  the  old  decent  regulations  ; 
nay  that  their  salvation  will  lie  in  extending  and  improving 
these.  Like  a  weak  man,  he  drives  with  spasmodic  vehe- 
mence towards  his  purpose  ;  cramps  himself  to  it,  heeding  no 
voice  of  prudence,  no  cry  of  pity:  He  will  have  his  College- 
rules  obeyed  by  his  Collegians ;  that  first ;  and  till  that, 
nothing.  He  is  an  ill-starred  Pedant,  as  I  said.  He  would 
have  it  the  world  was  a  College  of  that  kind,  and  the  world 
was  not  that.  Alas,  was  not  his  doom  stern  enough  ? 
Whatever  wrongs  he  did,  were  they  not  all  frightfully 
avenged  on  him? 

It  is  meritorious  to  insist  on  forms ;  Religion  and  all  else 
naturally  clothes  itself  in  forms.  Everywhere  the  formed 
world  is  the  only  habitable  one.  The  naked  formlessness 
of  Puritanism  is  not  the  thing  I  praise  in  the  Puritans ;  it  is 
the  thing  I  pity,  — praising  only  the  spirit  which  had  rendered 
that  inevitable  !  All  substances  clothe  themselves  in  forms: 
but  there  are  suitable  true  forms,  and  then  there  are  untrue 
unsuitable.  As  the  briefest  definition,  one  might  say,  Forms 
which  grow  round  a  substance,  if  we  rightly  understand  that, 
will  correspond  to  the  real  nature  and  purport  of  it,  will  be 
true,  good ;  forms  which  are  consciously  put  round  a  sub 


228  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

stance,  bad.  I  invite  you  to  reflect  on  this.  It  distinguishes 
true  from  false  in  Ceremonial  Form,  earnest  solemnity  from 
empty  pageant,  in  all  human  things. 

There  must  be  a  veracity,  a  natural  spontaneity  in  forms. 
In  the  commonest  meeting  of  men,  a  person  making,  what 
we  call,  "  set  speeches,"  is  not  he  an  offence  ?  In  the  mere 
drawing-room,  whatsoever  courtesies  you  see  to  be  grimaces, 
prompted  by  no  spontaneous  reality  within,  are  a  thing  you 
wish  to  get  away  from.  But  suppose  now  it  were  some 
matter  of  vital  concernment,  some  transcendent  matter  (as 
Divine  Worship  is),  about  which  your  whole  soul,  struck 
dumb  with  its  excess  of  feeling,  knew  not  how  to  form  itself 
into  utterance  at  all,  and  preferred  formless  silence  to  any 
utterance  there  possible,  —  what  should  we  say  of  a  man 
coming  forward,  to  represent  or  utter  it  for  you  in  the  way 
of  upholsterer-mummery?  Such  a  man,  —  let  him  depart 
swiftly,  if  he  love  himself !  You  have  lost  your  only  son ; 
are  mute,  struck  down,  without  even  tears :  an  importunate 
man  importunately  offers  to  celebrate  Funeral  Games  for 
him  in  the  manner  of  the  Greeks !  Such  mummery  is  not 
only  not  to  be  accepted,  —  it  is  hateful,  unendurable.  It  is 
what  the  old  Prophets  called  "  Idolatry,"  worshipping  of 
hollow  shows  j  what  all  earnest  men  do  and  will  reject.  We 
can  partly  understand  what  those  poor  Puritans  meant. 
Laud  dedicating  that  St.  Catherine  Creed's  Church,  in  the 
manner  we  have  it  described  ;  with  his  multiplied  ceremonial 
bowings,  gesticulations,  exclamations  :  surely  it  is  rather  the 
rigorous  formal  Pedant,  intent  on  his  "  College-rules,"  than 
the  earnest  Prophet,  intent  on  the  essence  of  the  matter ! 

Puritanism  found  such  forms  insupportable ;  trampled  on 
such  forms  ;  —  we  have  to  excuse  it  for  saying,  No  form  at 
all  rather  than  such  !  It  stood  preaching  in  its  bare  pulpit, 
with  nothing  but  the  Bible  in  its  hand.     Nay,  a  man  preach 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  22Q 

ing  from  his  earnest  soul  into  the  earnest  souls  of  men :  is 
not  this  virtually  the  essence  of  all  Churches  whatsoever? 
The  nakedest,  savagest  reality,'  I  say,  is  preferable  to  any 
semblance,  however  dignified.  Besides,  it  will  clothe  itself 
with  due  semblance  by  and  by,  if  it  be  real.  No  fear  of  that ; 
actually  no  fear  at  all.  Given  the  living  man,  there  will  be 
found  clothes  for  him;  he  will  find  himself  clothes.  But  the 
suit  of  clothes  pretending  that  it  is  both  clothes  and  man  — ! 
—  We  cannot  "  fight  the  French  *'  by  three  hundred  thousand 
red  uniforms  :  there  must  be  7nen  in  the  inside  of  them ! 
Semblance,  I  assert,  must  actually  not  divorce  itself  from 
Reality.  If  Semblance  do,  —  why  then  there  must  be  men 
found  to  rebel  against  Semblance,  for  it  has  become  a  lie ! 
These  two  Antagonisms  at  war  here,  in  the  case  of  Laud 
and  the  Puritans,  are  as  old  nearly  as  the  world.  They  went 
to  fierce  battle  over  England  in  that  age  ;  and  fought  out 
their  confused  controversy  to  a  certain  length,  with  many 
results  for  all  of  us. 

In  the  age  which  directly  followed  that  of  the  Puritans, 
their  cause  or  themselves  were  little  likely  to  have  justice 
done  them.  Charles  Second  and  his  Rochesters  were  not 
the  kind  of  men  you  would  set  to  judge  what  the  worth  or 
meaning  of  such  men  might  have  been.  That  there  could 
be  any  faith  or  truth  in  the  life  of  a  man,  was  what  these 
poor  Rochesters,  and  the  age  they  ushered  in,  had  forgotten. 
Puritanism  was  hung  on  gibbets,  —  like  the  bones  of  the 
leading  Puritans.  Its  work  nevertheless  went  on  accom- 
plishing itself.  All  true  work  of  a  man,  hang  the  author  of 
it  on  what  gibbet  you  like,  must  and  will  accomplish  itself. 
We  have  our  Habeas-Corpus,  our  free  Representation  of  the 
People ;  acknowledgment,  wide  as  the  world,  that  all  men 
are,  or  else  must,  shall,  and  will  become,  what  we  call  free 


230  LECTURES  OAT  HEROES. 

men ;  —  men  with  their  life  grounded  on  reality  and  justice, 
not  on  tradition,  which  has  become  unjust  and  a  chimera! 
This  in  part,  and  much  besides  this,  was  the  work  of  the 
Puritans. 

And  indeed,  as  these  things  became  gradually  manifest, 
the  character  of  the  Puritans  began  to  clear  itself.  Their 
memories  were,  one  after  another,  taken  down  from  the  gib- 
bet ;  nay  a  certain  portion  of  them  are  now,  in  these  days, 
as  good  as  canonized.  Eliot,  Hampden,  Pym,  nay  Ludlow, 
Hutchinson,  Vane  himself,  are  admitted  to  be  a  kind  of 
Heroes ;  political  Conscript  Fathers,  to  whom  in  no  small 
degree  we  owe  what  makes  us  a  free  England :  it  would  not 
be  safe  for  anybody  to  designate  these  men  as  wicked  now. 
Few  Puritans  of  note  but  find  their  apologists  somewhere, 
and  have  a  certain  reverence  paid  them  by  earnest  men.  One 
Puritan,  I  think,  and  almost  he  alone,  our  poor  Cromwell, 
seems  to  hang  yet  on  the  gibbet,  and  find  no  hearty  apolo- 
gist anywhere.  Him  neither  saint  nor  sinner  will  acquit  of 
great  wickedness.  A  man  of  ability,  infinite  talent,  courage 
and  so  forth  :  but  he  betrayed  the  Cause.  Selfish  ambition, 
dishonesty,  duplicity;  a  fierce,  coarse,  hypocritical  Tartufe ; 
turning  all  that  noble  Struggle  for  constitutional  Liberty  into 
a  sorry  farce  played  for  his  own  benefit :  this  and  worse  is 
the  character  they  give  of  Cromwell.  And  then  there  come 
contrasts  with  Washington  and  others ;  above  all,  with  these 
noble  Pyms  and  Hampdens,  whose  noble  work  he  stole  for 
himself,  and  ruined  into  a  futility  and  deformity. 

This  view  of  Cromwell  seems  to  me  the  not  unnatural 
product  of  a  century  like  the  Eighteenth.  As  we  said  of  the^ 
Valet, so  cf  the  Sceptic:  He  does  not  know  a  Hero  when  he 
sees  him !  The  Valet  expected  purple  mantles,  gilt  sceptres, 
body-guards  and  flourishes  of  trumpets :  the  Sceptic  of  the 
Eighteenth  century  looks  for  regulated  respectable  Formulas. 


THE  RUGGED  OUTCAST  CROMWELL."— Page  23  I 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  23 1 

"  Principles,"  or  what  else  he  may  call  them ;  a  style  of 
speech  and  conduct  which  has  got  to  seem  "  respectable," 
which  can  plead  for  itself  in  a  handsome  articulate  manner, 
and  gain  the  suffrages  of  an  enlightened  sceptical  Eighteenth 
century!  It  is,  at  bottom,  the  same  thing  that  both  the 
Valet  and  he  expect:  the  garnitures  of  some  acknowledged 
royalty,  which  then  they  will  acknowledge  !  The  King  com- 
ing to  them  in  the  rugged  /^wformulistic  state  shall  be  no 
King. 

For  my  own  share,  far  be  it  from  me  to  say  or  insinuate  a. 
word  of  disparagement  against  such  characters  as  Hampden, 
Eliot,  Pym ;  whom  I  believe  to  have  been  right  worthy  and 
useful  men.  I  have  read  diligently  what  books  and  docu- 
ments about  them  I  could  come  at;  —  with  the  honestest 
wish  to  admire,  to  love  and  worship  them  like  Heroes;  but 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  if  the  real  truth  must  be  told,  with  very 
indifferent  success  !  At  bottom,  I  found  that  it  would  not  do. 
They  are  very  noble  men,  these ;  step  along  in  their  stately 
way,  with  their  measured  euphemisms,  philosophies,  parlia- 
mentary eloquences,  Ship-moneys,  Monarchies  of  Man;  a 
most  constitutional,  unblamable,  dignified  set  of  men.  But 
the  heart  remains  cold  before  them;  the  fancy  alone  endeav- 
ors to  get  up  some  worship  of  them.  What  man's  heart 
does,  in  reality,  break  forth  into  any  fire  of  brotherly  love 
for  these  men?  They  are  become  dreadfully  dull  men! 
One  breaks  down  often  enough  in  the  constitutional  elo- 
quence of  the  admirable  Pym,  with  his  "seventhly  and  lastly." 
You  find  that  it  may  be  the  admirablest  thing  in  the  world, 
but  that  it  is  heavy,  —  heavy  as  lead,  barren  as  brick-clay; 
that,  in  a  word,  for  you  there  is  little  or  nothing  now  surviv- 
ing there !  One  leaves  all  these  Nobilities  standing  in  their 
niche-s  of  honor:  the  rugged  outcast  Cromwell,  he  is  the 
man  of  them  all  in  whom  one  still  finds  human  stuff.     The 


2^2  LECTURES  OAT  HEROES. 

great  savage  Baresark :  he  could  write  no  euphemistic  Mon- 
archy of  Man  j  did  not  speak,  did  not  work  with  glib  regu- 
larity, had  no  straight  story  to  tell  for  himself  anywhere. 
But  he  stood  bare,  not  cased  in  euphemistic  coat-of-mail ;  he 
grappled  like  a  giant,  face  to  face,  heart  to  heart,  with  the 
naked  truth  of  things !  That,  after  all,  is  the  sort  of  man  for 
one.  I  plead  guilty  to  valuing  such  a  man  beyond  all  other 
sorts  of  men.  Smooth-shaven  Respectabilities  not  a  few  one 
finds,  that  are  not  good  for  much.  Small  thanks  to  a  man 
for  keeping  his  hands  clean,  who  would  not  touch  the  work 
but  with  gloves  on  ! 

Neither,  on  the  whole,  does  this  constitutional  tolerance 
of  the  Eighteenth  century  for  the  other  happier  Puritans 
seem  to  be  a  very  great  matter.  One  might  say,  it  is  but  a 
piece  of  Formulism  and  Scepticism,  like  the  rest.  They 
tell  us,  It  was  a  sorrowful  thing  to  consider  that  the  foun- 
dation of  our  English  Liberties  should  have  been  laid  by 
"  Superstition."  These  Puritans  came  forward  with  Calvin- 
istic  incredible  Creeds,  Anti-Laudisms,  Westminster  Con- 
fessions; demanding,  chiefly  of  all,  that  they  should  have 
liberty  to  worship  in  their  own  way.  Liberty  to  tax  them- 
selves :  that  was  the  thing  they  should  have  demanded  ! 
It  was  Superstition,  Fanaticism,  disgraceful  ignorance  of 
Constitutional  Philosophy,  to  insist  on  the  other  thing!  — 
Liberty  to  tax  one's  self  ?  Not  to  pay  out  money  from  your 
pocket  except  on  reason  shown  ?  No  century,  I  think,  but 
a  rather  barren  one  would  have  fixed  on  that  as  the  first 
right  of  man  !  I  should  say,  on  the  contrary,  A  just  man 
will  generally  have  better  cause  than  money  in  what  shape 
soever,  before  deciding  to  revolt  against  his  Government. 
Ours  is  a  most  confused  world;  in  which  a  good  man  will 
be  thankful  to  see  any  kind  of  Government  maintain  itself 
in  a  not  insupportable  manner:  and  here  in  England,  to  this 


THE  llEkO  AS  A'LVC.  2$$ 

hour,  if  he  is. not  ready  to  pay  a  great  many  taxes  which  he  can 
see  very  small  reason  in,  it  will  not  go  well  with  him,  I  think! 
He  must  try  some  other  climate  than  this.  Tax-gatherer? 
Money?  He  will  say:  "Take  my  money,  since  you  can, 
and  it  is  so  desirable  to  you;  take  it,  —  and  take  yourself 
away  with  it ;  and  leave  me  alone  to  my  work  here.  /  am 
still  here ;  can  still  work,  after  all  the  money  you  have  taken 
from  me  !  "  But  if  they  come  to  him,  and  say,  "  Acknowledge 
a  Lie ;  pretend  to  say  you  are  worshipping  God,  when  you 
are  not  doing  it:  believe  not  the  thing  that  you  find  true,  but 
the  thing  that  I  find,  or  pretend  to  find  true  ! "  He  will 
answer :  "  No ;  by  God's  help,  no  !  You  may  take  my  purse  ; 
but  I  cannot  have  my  moral  Self  annihilated.  The  purse  is 
any  Highwayman's  who  might  meet  me  with  a  loaded  pistol: 
but  the  Self  is  mine  and  God  my  Maker's ;  it  is  not  yours  ; 
and  I  will  resist  you  to  the  death,  and  revolt  against  you,  and, 
on  the  whole,  front  all  manner  of  extremities,  accusations 
and  confusions,  in  defence  of  that !  " 

Really,  it  seems  to  me  the  one  reason  which  could  justify 
revolting,  this  of  the  Puritans.  It  has  been  the  soul  of  all 
just  revolts  among  men.  Not  Hunger  alone  produced  even 
the  French  Revolution  ;  no,  but  the  feeling  of  the  insupport- 
able all-pervading  Falsehood  which  had  now  embodied  itself 
in  Hunger,  in  universal  material  Scarcity  and  Nonentity,  and 
thereby  become  indisputably  false  in  the  eyes  of  all!  We 
will  leave  the  Eighteenth  century  with  its  "liberty  to  tax 
itself."  We  will  not  astonish  ourselves  that  the  meaning  of 
such  men  as  the  Puritans  remained  dim  to  it.  To  men  who 
believe  in  no  reality  at  all,  how  shall  a  real  human  soul,  the 
intensest  of  all  realities,  as  it  were  the  Voice  of  this  world's 
Maker  still  speaking  to  us,  —  be  intelligible  ?  What  it  cannot 
reduce  into  constitutional  doctrines  relative  to  "taxing,"  or 
other  the  like  material  interest,  gross,  palpable  to  the  sense, 


234  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

such  a  century  will  needs  reject  as  an  amorphous  heap  of 
rubbish.  Hampdens,  Pyms  and  Ship-money  will  be  the 
theme  of  much  constitutional  eloquence,  striving  to  be 
fervid ;  — which  will  glitter,  if  not  as  fire  does,  then  as  ice 
does  :  and  the  irreducible  Cromwell  will  remain  a  chaotic 
mass  of  "  madness,"  "  hypocrisy,"  and  much  else. 

From  of  old,  I  will  confess,  this  theory  of  Cromwell's 
falsity  has  been  incredible  to  me.  Nay  I  cannot  believe  the 
like,  of  any  Great  Man  whatever.  Multitudes  of  Great  Men 
figure  in  History  as  false  selfish  men  ;  but  if  we  will  consider 
it,  they  are  but  figures  for  us,  unintelligible  shadows ;  we  do 
not  see  into  them  as  men  that  could  have  existed  at  all.  A 
superficial  unbelieving  generation  only,  with  no  eye  but  for 
the  surfaces  and  semblances  of  things,  could  form  such 
notions  of  Great  Men.  Can  a  great  soul  be  possible  without 
a  conscience  in  it,  the  essence  of  all  real  souls,  great  or  small? 
—  No,  we  cannot  figure  Cromwell  as  a  Falsity  and  Fatuity  ; 
the  longer  I  study  him  and  his  career,  I  believe  this  the  less. 
Why  should  we?  There  is  no  evidence  of  it.  Is  it  not 
strange  that,  after  all  the  mountains  of  calumny  this  man 
has  been  subject  to,  after  being  represented  as  the  very 
prince  of  liars,  who  never,  or  hardly  ever,  spoke  truth,  but 
always  some  cunning  counterfeit  of  truth,  there  should  not 
yet  have  been  one  falsehood  brought  clearly  home  to  him  ? 
A  prince  of  liars,  and  no  lie  spoken  by  him.  Not  one  that 
I  could  yet  get  sight  of.  It  is  like  Pococke  asking  Grotius, 
Where  is  your  proof  of  Mahomet's  Pigeon?  No  proof  !  — 
Let  us  leave  all  these  calumnious  chimeras,  as  chimeras 
ought  to  be  left.  They  are  not  portraits  of  the  man ;  they 
are  distracted  phantasms  of  him,  the  joint  product  of  hatred 
and  darkness. 

Looking  at  the  man's  life  with  our  own  eyes,  it  seems  to 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  235 

me,  a  very  different  hypothesis  suggests  itself.  What  little 
we  know  of  his  earlier  obscure  years,  distorted  as  it  has 
come  down  to  us,  does  it  not  all  betoken  an  earnest,  affec- 
tionate, sincere  kind  of  man  ?  His  nervous  melancholic 
temperament  indicates  rather  a  seriousness  too  deep  for  him. 
Of  those  stories  of  "  Spectres ; "  of  the  white  Spectre  in 
broad  daylight,  predicting  that  he  should  be  King  of  Eng- 
land, we  are  not  bound  to  believe  much  ;  —  probably  no  more 
than  of  the  other  black  Spectre,  or  Devil  in  person,  to  whom 
the  Officer  saw  him  sell  himself  before  Worcester  Fight ! 
But  the  mournful,  over-sensitive,  hypochondriac  humor  of 
Oliver,  in  his  young  years,  is  otherwise  indisputably  known. 
The  Huntingdon  Physician  told  Sir  Philip  Warwick  himself, 
He  had  often  been  sent  for  at  midnight;  Mr.  Cromwell 
was  full  of  hypochondria,  thought  himself  near  dying,  and 
"had  fancies  about  the  Town-cross."  These  things  are 
significant.  Such  an  excitable  deep-feeling  nature,  in  that 
rugged  stubborn  strength  of  his,  is  not  the  symptom  of 
falsehood;  it  is  the  symptom  and  promise  of  quite  other 
than  falsehood ! 

The  young  Oliver  is  sent  to  study  Law ;  falls,  or  is  said  to 
have  fallen,  for  a  little  period,  into  some  of  the  dissipations 
of  youth  ;  but  if  so,  speedily  repents,  abandons  all  this  :  not 
much  above  twenty,  he  is  married,  settled  as  an  altogether 
grave  and  quiet  man.  "  He  pays  back  what  money  he  had 
won  at  gambling,"  says  the  story  ;  —  he  does  not  think  any 
gain  of  that  kind  could  be  really  his.  It  is  very  interesting, 
very  natural,  this  "  conversion,"  as  they  well  name  it ;  this 
awakening  of  a  great  true  soul  from  the  worldly  slough,  to 
see  into  the  awful  truth  of  things ;  —  to  see  that  Time  and 
its  shows  all  rested  on  Eternity,  and  this  poor  earth  of  ours 
was  the  threshold  either  of  Heaven  or  of  Hell !  Oliver's 
life  at  St.  Ives  and  Ely,  as  a  sober  industrious  Farmer,  is 


2$6  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

it  not  altogether  as  that  of  a  true  and  devout  man  ?  He  has 
renounced  the  world  and  its  ways  ;  its  prizes  are  net  the 
thing  that  can  enrich  him.  He  tills  the  earth  ;  he  reads 
his  Bible;  daily  assembles  his  servants  round  him  to  wor- 
ship God.  He  comforts  persecuted  ministers,  is  fond  of 
preachers;  nay  can  himself  preach, — exhorts  his  neighbors 
to  be  wise,  to  redeem  the  time.  In  all  this  what  "  hypocrisy," 
"  ambition,"  "  cant,''  or  other  falsity  ?  The  man's  hopes,  I 
do  believe,  were  fixed  on  the  other  Higher  World  ;  his  aim  to 
get  well  thither,  by  walking  well  through  his  humble  course 
in  this  world.  He  courts  no  notice :  what  could  notice  here 
do  for  him  ?     "  Ever  in  his  great  Taskmaster's  eye." 

It  is  striking,  too,  how  he  comes  out  once  into  public 
view ;  he,  since  no  other  is  willing  to  come  :  in  resistance  to 
a  public  grievance.  I  mean,  in  that  matter  of  the  Bedford 
Fens.  No  one  else  will  go  to  law  with  Authority;  therefore 
he  will.  That  matter  once  settled,  he  returns  back  into 
obscurity,  to  his  Bible  and  his  Plough.  "Gain  influence"? 
His  influence  is  the  most  legitimate ;  derived  from  personal 
knowledge  of  him,  as  a  just,  religious,  reasonable  and  deter- 
mined man.  In  this  way  he  has  lived  till  past  forty}  old 
age  is  now  in  view  of  him,  and  the  earnest  portal  of  Death 
and  Eternity ;  it  was  at  this  point  that  he  suddenly  became 
"  ambitious  "  !  I  do  not  interpret  his  Parliamentary  mission 
in  that  way ! 

His  successes  in  Parliament,  his  successes  through  the 
war,  are  honest  successes  of  a  brave  man;  who  has  more 
resolution  in  the  heart  of  him,  more  light  in  the  head  of  him, 
than  other  men.  His  prayers  to  God ;  his  spoken  thanks  to 
the  God  of  Victory,  who  had  preserved  him  safe,  and  carried 
him  forward  so  far,  through  the  furious  clash  of  a  world  all 
set  in  conflict,  through  desperate-looking  envelopments  at 
Dunbar ;  through  the  death-hail  of  so  many  battles ;  mercy 


THE   HERO   AS  KING.  2$? 

after  mercy ;  to  the  "  crowning  mercy  "  of  Worcester  Fight : 
all  this  is  good  and  genuine  for  a  deep-hearted  Calvinistic 
Cromwell.  Only  to  vain  unbelieving  Cavaliers,  worshipping 
not  God  but  their  own  "love-locks,"  frivolities  and  formali- 
ties, living  quite  apart  from  contemplations  of  God,  living 
without  God  in  the  world,  need  it  seem  hypocritical. 

Nor  will  his  participation  in  the  King's  death  involve  him 
in  condemnation  with  us.  It  is  a  stern  business  killing  of  a 
King!  But  if  you  once  go  to  war  with  him,  it  lies  there; 
this  and  all  else  lies  there.  Once  at  war,  you  have  made 
wager  of  battle  with  him:  it  is  he  to  die,  or  else  you.  Rec- 
onciliation is  problematic ;  may  be  possible,  or,  far  more 
likely,  is  impossible.  It-  is  now  pretty  generally  admitted 
that  the  Parliament,  having  vanquished  Charles  First,  had 
no  way  of  making  any  tenable  arrangement  with  him.  The 
large  Presbyterian  party,  apprehensive  now  of  the  Independ- 
ents, were  most  anxious  to  do  so;  anxious  indeed  as  for 
their  own  existence;  but  it  could  not  be.  The  unhappy 
Charles,  in  those  final  Hampton-Court  negotiations,  shows 
himself  as  a  man  fatally  incapable  of  being  dealt  with.  A 
man  who,  once  for  all,  could  not  and  would  not  understand : 
—  whose  thought  did  not  in  any  measure  represent  to  him 
the  real  fact  of  the  matter;  nay  worse,  whose  word  did  not 
at  all  represent  his  thought.  We  may  say  this  of  him  with- 
out cruelty,  with  deep  pity  rather:  but  it  is  true  and  undeni- 
able. Forsaken  there  of  all  but  the  name  of  Kingship,  he 
still,  finding  himself  treated  with  outward  respect  as  a  King, 
fancied  that  he  might  play  off  party  against  party,  and  smug- 
gle himself  into  his  old  power  by  deceiving  both.  Alas,  they 
both  discovered  that  he  was  deceiving  them.  A  man  whose 
word  w\\\  not  inform  you  at  all  what  he  means  or  will  do,  is 
not  a  man  you  can  bargain  with.  You  must  get  out  of  that 
man's  way,  or  put  him  out  of  yours  !     The  Presbyterians,  in 


238  LECTURES  O.V  HEROES. 

their  despair,  were  still  for  believing  Charles,  though  found 
false,  unbelievable  again  and  again.  Not  so  Cromwell :  "  For 
all  our  fighting,"  says  he,  "we  are  to  have  a  little  bit  of 
paper  ?  "     No ! 

In  fact,  everywhere  we  have  to  note  the  decisive  practical 
eye  of  this  man ;  how  he  drives  towards  the  practical  and 
practicable  ;  has  a  genuine  insight  into  what  is  fact.  Such  an 
intellect,  I  maintain,  does  not  belong  to  a  false  man :  the  false 
man  sees  false  shows,  plausibilities,  expediences :  the  true 
man  is  needed  to  discern  even  practical  truth.  Cromwell's 
advice  about  the  Parliament's  Army,  early  in  the  contest, 
How  they  were  to  dismiss  their  city-tapsters,  flimsy  riotous 
persons,  and  choose  substantial  yeomen,  whose  heart  was  in 
the  work,  to  be  soldiers  for  them :  this  is  advice  by  a  man 
who  saw.  Fact  answers,  if  you  see  into  Fact !  Cromwell's 
Ironsides  were  the  embodiment  of  this  insight  of  his ;  men 
fearing  God;  and  without  any  other  fear.  No  more  conclu- 
sively genuine  set  of  fighters  ever  trod  the  soil  of  England, 
or  of  any  other  land. 

Neither  will  we  blame  greatly  that  word  of  Cromwell's  to 
them ;  which  was  so  blamed :  "  If  the  King  should  meet  me 
in  battle,  I  would  kill  the  King."  Why  not?  These  words 
were  spoken  to  men  who  stood  as  before  a  Higher  than 
Kings.  They  had  set  more  than  their  own  lives  on  the  cast. 
The  Parliament  may  call  it,  in  official  language,  a  fighting 
'■'for  the  King ; "  but  we,  for  our  share,  cannot  understand 
that.  To  us  it  is  no  dilettante  work,  no  sleek  officiality;  it 
is  sheer  rough  death  and  earnest.  They  have  brought  it  to 
the  calling-forth  of  War;  horrid  internecine  fight,  man  grap- 
pling with  man  in  fire-eyed  rage,  —  the  infernal  element  in 
man  called  forth,  to  try  it  by  that !  Do  that  therefore :  since 
that  is  the  thing  to  be  done.  — The  successes  of  Cromwell 
seem  to  me  a  very  natural  thing!     Since  he  was  not  shot  in 


THE   HERO   AS  KING.  239 

battle,  they  were  an  inevitable  thing.  That  such  a  man, 
with  the  eye  to  see,  with  the  heart  to  dare,  should  advance, 
from  post  to  post,  from  victory  to  victory,  till  the  Huntingdon 
Farmer  became,  by  whatever  name  you  might  call  him,  the 
acknowledged  Strongest  Man  in  England,  virtually  the  King 
of  England,  requires  no  magic  to  explain  it ! 

Truly  it  is  a  sad  thing  for  a  people,  as  for  a  man,  to  fall 
into  Scepticism,  into  dilettantism,  insincerity;  not  to  know 
a  Sincerity  when  they  see  it.  For  this  world,  and  for  all 
worlds,  what  curse  is  so  fatal  ?  The  heart  lying  dead,  the 
eye  cannot  see.  What  intellect  remains  is  merely  the  vulpine 
intellect.  That  a  true  King  be  sent  them  is  of  small  use ; 
they  do  not  know  him  when  sent.  They  say  scornfully,  Is 
this  your  King?  The  Hero  wastes  his  heroic  faculty  in 
bootless  contradiction  from  the  unworthy;  and  can  accom- 
plish little.  For  himself  he  does  accomplish  a  heroic  life, 
which  is  much,  which  is  all;  but  for  the  world  he  accom- 
plishes comparatively  nothing.  The  wild  rude  Sincerity, 
direct  from  Nature,  is  not  glib  in  answering  from  the  wit- 
ness-box :  in  your  small-debt  pie-powder  court,  he  is  scouted 
as  a  counterfeit.  The  vulpine  intellect  "detects  "  him.  For 
being  a  man  worth  any  thousand  men,  the  response  your 
Knox,  your  Cromwell  gets,  is  an  argument  for  two  centuries 
whether  he  was  a  man  at  all.  God's  greatest  gift  to  this 
Earth  is  sneeringly  flung  away.  The  miraculous  talisman  is 
a  paltry  plated  coin,  not  fit  to  pass  in  the  shops  as  a  common 
guinea. 

Lamentable  this  !  I  say,  this  must  be  remedied.  Till  this 
be  remedied  in  some  measure,  there  is  nothing  remedied. 
"  Detect  quacks  "  ?  Yes  do,  for  Heaven's  sake  ;  but  know 
withal  the  men  that  are  to  be  trusted  !  Till  we  know  that, 
what  is  all  our  knowledge ;  how  shall  we  even  so  much  as 
"detect"?      For   the   vulpine   sharpness,   which   considers 


240  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

itself  to  be  knowledge ;  and  "detects  "  in  that  fashion,  is  far 
mistaken.  Dupes  indeed  are  many  :  but,  of  all  dupes,  there 
is  none  so  fatally  situated  as  he  who  lives  in  undue  terror  of 
being  duped.  The  world  does  exist ;  the  world  has  truth  in 
it,  or  it  would  not  exist !  First  recognize  what  is  true,  we 
shall  then  discern  what  is  false ;  and  properly  never  till  then. 

"  Know  the  men  that  are  to  be  trusted  :  "  alas,  this  is  yet, 
in  these  days,  very  far  from  us.  The  sincere  alone  can 
recognize  sincerity.  Not  a  Hero  only  is  needed,  but  a  world 
fit  for  him;  a  world  not  of  Valets j  —  the  Hero  comes  almost 
in  vain  to  it  otherwise !  Yes,  it  is  far  from  us  :  but  it  must 
come ;  thank  God,  it  is  visibly  coming.  Till  it  do  come, 
what  have  we?  Ballot-boxes,  suffrages,  French  Revolu- 
tions:—  if  we  are  as  Valets,  and  do  not  know  the  Hero 
when  we  see  him,  what  good  are  all  these?  A  heroic 
Cromwell  comes ;  and  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  he  can- 
not have  a  vote  from  us.  Why,  the  insincere,  unbelieving 
world  is  the  natural  fti'operty  of  the  Quack,  and  of  the 
Father  of  quacks  and  quackeries  !  Misery,  confusion, 
unveracity,  are  alone  possible  there.  By  ballot-boxes  we 
alter  the  figure  of  our  Quack ;  but  the  substance  of  him 
continues.  The  Valet- World  has  to  be  governed  by  the 
Sham- Hero,  by  the  King  merely  dressed  in  King-gear.  It 
is  his;  he  is  its!  In  brief,  one  of  two  things:  We  shall 
either  learn  to  know  a  Hero,  a  true  Governor  and  Captain, 
somewhat  better,  when  we  see  him ;  or  else  go  on  to  be 
forever  governed  by  the  Unheroic ;  —  had  we  ballot-boxes 
clattering  at  every  street-corner,  there  were  no  remedy  in 
these. 

Poor  Cromwell,  —  great  Cromwell  !  The  inarticulate 
Prophet;  Prophet  who  could  not  speak.  Rude,  confused, 
struggling  to  utter  himself,  with  his  savage  depth,  with  his 
wild  sincerity  ;  and  he  looked  so  strange,  among  the  elegant 


THE  HERO   AS  KING.  24 1 

Euphemisms,  dainty  little  Falklands,  didactic  Chillingworths, 
diplomatic  Clarendons  !  Consider  him.  An  outer  hull  of 
chaotic  confusion,  visions  of  the  Devil,  nervous  dreams, 
almost  semi-madness ;  and  yet  such  a  clear  determinate 
man's-energy  working  in  the  heart  of  that.  A  kind  of 
chaotic  man.  The  ray  as  of  pure  starlight  and  fire,  working 
in  such  an  element  of  boundless  hypochondria,  wwformed 
black  of  darkness !  And  yet  withal  this  hypochondria,  what 
was  it  but  the  very  greatness  of  the  man  ?  The  depth  and 
tenderness  of  his  wild  affections  :  the  quantity  of  sympathy 
he  had  with  things,  —  the  quantity  of  insight  he  would  yet 
get  into  the  heart  of  things,  the  mastery  he  would  yet  get 
over  things:  this  was  his  hypochondria.  The  man's  misery, 
as  man's  misery  always  does,  came  of  his  greatness.  Samuel 
Johnson  too  is  that  kind  of  man.  Sorrow-stricken,  half- 
distracted  ;  the  wide  element  of  mournful  black  enveloping 
him,  —  wide  as  the  world.  It  is  the  character  of  a  prophetic 
man ;  a  man  with  his  whole  soul  seeing,  and  struggling  to 
see. 

On  this  ground,  too,  I  explain  to  myself  Cromwell's  reputed 
confusion  of  speech.  To  himself  the  internal  meaning  was 
sun-clear;  but  the  material  with  which  he  was  to  clothe  it 
in  utterance  was  not  there.  He  had  lived  silent ;  a  great 
unnamed  sea  of  Thought  round  him  all  his  days ;  and  in  his 
way  of  life  little  call  to  attempt  naming  or  uttering  that. 
With  his  sharp  power  of  vision,  resolute  power  of  action,  I 
doubt  not  he  could  have  learned  to  write  Books  withal,  and 
speak  fluently  enough  ;  —  he  did  harder  things  than  writing 
of  Books.  This  kind  of  man  is  precisely  he  who  is  fit  for 
doing  manfully  all  things  you  will  set  him  on  doing.  Intel- 
lect is  not  speaking  and  logicizing;  it  is  seeing  and  ascer- 
taining. Virtue,  Vir-tus,  manhood,  hero-\\oo6.,  is  not  fair- 
spoken  immaculate  regularity  ;    it  is  first  of  all,  what  the 


242  LECTURES   ON  HEROES. 

Germans  well  name  it,  Tugend '  {Taugend,  dow-\ng  or  Dough- 
tiness),  Courage  and  the  Faculty  to  do.  This  basis  of  the 
matter  Cromwell  had  in  him. 

One  understands  moreover  how,  though  he  could  not  speak 
in  Parliament,  he  might  preach,  rhapsodic  preaching;  above 
all,  how  he  might  be  great  in  extempore  prayer.  These  are 
the  free  outpouring  utterances  of  what  is  in  the  heart :  method 
is  not  required  in  them  ;  warmth,  depth,  sincerity,  are  all  that 
is  required.  Cromwell's  habit  of  prayer  is  a  notable  feature 
of  him.  All  his  great  enterprises  were  commenced  with 
prayer.  In  dark  inextricable-looking  difficulties,  his  Officers 
and  he  used  to  assemble,  and  pray  alternately,  for  hours,  for 
days,  till  some  definite  resolution  rose  among  them,  some 
"  door  of  hope,"  as  they  would  name  it,  disclosed  itself. 
Consider  that.  In  tears,  in  fervent  prayers,  and  cries  to  the 
great  God,  to  have  pity  on  them,  to  make  His  light  shine 
before  them.  They,  armed  Soldiers  of  Christ,  as  they  felt 
themselves  to  be  ;  a  little  band  of  Christian  Brothers,  who 
had  drawn  the  sword  against  a  great  black  devouring  world 
not  Christian,  but  Mammonish,  Devilish,  —  they  cried  to 
God  in  their  straits,  in  their  extreme  need,  not  to  forsake 
the  Cause  that  was  His.  The  light  which  now  rose  upon 
them,  —  how  could  a  human  soul,  by  any  means  at  all,  get 
better  light?  Was  not  the  purpose  so  formed  like  to  be 
precisely  the  best,  wisest,  the  one  to  be  followed  without 
hesitation  any  more?  To  them  it  was  as  the  shining  of 
Heaven's  own  Splendor  in  the  waste-howling  darkness;  the 
Pillar  of  Fire  by  night,  that  was  to  guide  them  on  their 
desolate  perilous  way.  Was  it  not  such  ?  Can  a  man's 
soul,  to  this  hour,  get  guidance  by  any  other  method  than 
intrinsically  by  that  same,  —  devout  prostration  of  the  earnest 
struggling  soul  before  the  Highest,  the  Giver  of  all  Light ; 
be   such  prayer  a  spoken,  articulate,  or  be  it  a  voiceless, 


THE  HERO   AS  KING.  243 

inarticulate  one  ?  There  is  no  other  method.  "  Hypocrisy  "  ? 
One  begins  to  be  weary  of  all  that.  They  who  call  it  so, 
have  no  right  to  speak  on  such  matters.  They  never  formed 
a  purpose,  what  one  can  call  a  purpose.  They  went  about 
balancing  expediencies,  plausibilities ;  gathering  votes,  ad- 
vices ;  they  never  were  alone  with  the  truth  of  a  thing  at 
all.  —  Cromwell's  prayers  were  likely  to  be  "eloquent,1'  and 
much  more  than  that.  His  was  the  heart  of  a  man  who 
could  pray. 

But  indeed  his  actual  Speeches,  I  apprehend,  were  not 
nearly  so  ineloquent,  incondite,  as  they  look.  We  find  he 
was,  what  all  speakers  aim  to  be,  an  impressive  speaker, 
even  in  Parliament;  one  who,  from  the  first,  had  weight. 
With  that  rude  passionate  voice  of  his,  he  was  always  under- 
stood to  mean  something,  and  men  wished  to  know  what. 
He  disregarded  eloquence,  nay  despised  and  disliked  it; 
spoke  always  without  premeditation  of  the  words  he  was  to 
use.  The  Reporters,  too,  in  those  days  seem  to  have  been 
singularly  candid  ;  and  to  have  given  the  Printer  precisely 
what  they  found  on  their  own  notepaper.  And  withal,  what 
a  strange  proof  is  it  of  Cromwell's  being  the  premeditative 
ever-calculating  hypocrite,  acting  a  play  before  the  world, 
That  to  the  last  he  took  no  more  charge  of  his  Speeches  ! 
How  came  he  not  to  study  his  words  a  little,  before  flinging 
them  out  to  the  public?  If  the  words  were  true  words,  they 
could  be  left  to  shift  for  themselves. 

But  with  regard  to  Cromwell's  "  lying,"  we  will  make  one 
remark.  This,  I  suppose,  or  something  like  this,  to  have 
been  the  nature  of  it.  All  parties  found  themselves  deceived 
in  him;  each  party  understood  him  to  be  meaning  this,  heard 
him  even  say  so,  and  behold  he  turns  out  to  have  been'mean- 
ing  that /  He  was,  cry  they,  the  chief  of  liars.  But  now, 
intrinsically,  is  not  all  this  the  inevitable  fortune,  not  of  a 


244  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

false  man  in  such  times,  but  simply  of  a  superior  man? 
Such  a  man  must  have  reticences  in  him.  If  he  walk  wearing 
his  heart  upon  his  sleeve  for  daws  to  peck  at,  his  journey 
will  not  extend  far !  There  is  no  use  for  any  man's  taking  up 
his  abode  in  a  house  built  of  glass.  A  man  always  is  to  be 
himself  the  judge  how  much  of  his  mind  he  will  show  to 
other  men ;  even  to  those  he  would  have  work  along  with 
him.  There  are  impertinent  inquiries  made  :  your  rule  is, 
to  leave  the  inquirer  ?/;/informed  on  that  matter ;  not,  if  you 
can  help  it,  z#/>informed,  but  precisely  as  dark  as  he  was ! 
This,  could  one  hit  the  right  phrase  of  response,  is  what 
the  wise  and  faithful  man  would  aim  to  answer  in  such  a 
case. 

Cromwell,  no  doubt  of  it,  spoke  often  in  the  dialect  of 
small  subaltern  parties;  uttered  to  them  2,  part  oi  his  mind. 
Each  little  party  thought  him  all  its  own.  Hence  their  rage, 
one  and  all,  to  find  him  not  of  their  party,  but  of  his  own 
party!  Was  it  his  blame?  At  all  seasons  of  his  history  he 
must  have  felt,  among  such  people,  how,  if  he  explained  to 
them  the  deeper  insight  he  had,  they  must  either  have  shud- 
dered aghast  at  it,  or  believing  it,  their  own  little  compact 
hypothesis  must  have  .gone  wholly  to  wreck.  They  could 
not  have  worked  in  his  province  any  more  ;  nay  perhaps  they 
could  not  now  have  worked  in  their  own  province.  It  is  the 
inevitable  position  of  a  great  man  among  small  men.  Small 
men,  most  active,  useful,  are  to  be  seen  everywhere,  whose 
whole  activity  depends  on  some  conviction  which  to  you  is 
palpably  a  limited  one;  imperfect,  what  we  call  an  error. 
But  would  it  be  a  kindness  always,  is  it  a  duty  always  or 
often,  to  disturb  them  in  that?  Many  a  man,  doing  loud 
work  in  the  world,  stands  only  on  some  thin  traditionality, 
conventionality;  to  him  indubitable,  to  you  incredible:  break 
that  beneath  hi  in,  he  sinks  to  endless  depths!    "I  might 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  245 

have  my  hand  full  of  truth,"  said  Fontenelle,  "and  open  only 
my  little  finger." 

And  if  this  be  the  fact  even  in  matters  of  doctrine,  how 
much  more  in  all  departments  of  practice  !  He  that  cannot 
withal  keep  his  mind  to  himself  cannot  practise  any  consid- 
erable thing  whatever.  And  we  call  it  "dissimulation,"  all 
this?  What  would  you  think  of  calling  the  general  of  an 
army  a  dissembler  because  he  did  not  tell  every  corporal  and 
private  soldier,  who  pleased  to  put  the  question,  what  his 
thoughts  were  about  every  thing  ?  —  Cromwell,  I  should 
rather  say,  managed  all  this  in  a  manner  we  must  admire 
for  its  perfection.  An  endless  vortex  of  such  questioning 
"corporals  "  rolled  confusedly  round  him  through  his  whole 
course ;  whom  he  did  answer.  It  must  have  been  as  a  great 
true-seeing  man  that  he  managed  this  too.  Not  one  proved 
falsehood,  as  I  said ;  not  one !  Of  what  man  that  ever 
wound  himself  through  such  a  coil  of  things  will  you  say  so 
much  ?  — 

But  in  fact  there  are  two  errors,  widely  prevalent,  which 
pervert  to  the  very  basis  our  judgments  formed  about  such 
men  as  Cromwell;  about  their  "ambition,"  "falsity,"  and 
suchlike.  The  first  is  what  I  might  call  substituting  thtgoal 
of  their  career  for  the  course  and  starting-point  of  it.  The 
vulgar  Historian  of  a  Cromwell  fancies  that  he  had  deter- 
mined on  being  Protector  of  England,  at  the  time  when  he 
was  ploughing  the  marsh  lands  of  Cambridgeshire.  His  ca- 
reer lay  all  mapped  out :  a  programme  of  the  whole  drama ; 
which  he  then  step  by  step  dramatically  unfolded,  with  all 
manner  of  cunning,  deceptive  dramaturgy,  as  he  went  on,  — 
the  hollow,  scheming  'rnonpiTf/c,  or  Play-actor,  that  he  was  ! 
This  is  a  radical  perversion ;  all  but  universal  in  such  cases. 
And  think  for  an  instant  how  different  the  fact  is!     How 


246  LECTURES  OjV  HEROES. 

much  does  one  of  u s  foresee  of  his  own  life?  Short  way 
ahead  of  us  it  is  all  dim;  an  ///nvound  skein  of  possibili- 
ties, of  apprehensions,  attemptabilities,  vague-looming  hopes. 
This  Cromwell  had  not  his  life  lying  all  in  that  fashion  of 
Programme,  which  he  needed  then,  with  that  unfathomable 
cunning  of  his,  only  to  enact  dramatically,  scene  after  scene  ! 
Not  so.  We  see  it  so;  but  to  him  it  was  in  no  measure  so. 
What  absurdities  would  fall  away  of  themselves,  were  this 
one  undeniable  fact  kept  honestly  in  view  by  History  !  His- 
torians indeed  will  tell  you  that  they  do  keep  it  in  view:  — 
but  look  whether  such  is  practically  the  fact !  Vulgar  His- 
tory, as  in  this  Cromwell's  case, omits  it  altogether;  even  the 
best  kinds  of  History  only  remember  it  now  and  then.  To 
remember  it  duly  with  rigorous  perfection,  as  in  the  fact  it 
stood,  requires  indeed  a  rare  faculty;  rare,  nay  impossible. 
A  very  Shakspeare  for  faculty ;  or  more  than  Shakspeare ; 
who  could  enact  a  brother  man's  biography,  see  with  the 
brother  man's  eyes,  at  all  points  of  his  course  what  things  he 
saw;  in  short,  know  his  course  and  him,  as  few  "  Historians  " 
are  like  to  do.  Half  or  more  of  all  .the  thick-plied  perver- 
sions which  distort  our  image  of  Cromwell,  will  disappear, 
if  we  honestly  so  much  as  try  to  represent  them  so ;  in 
sequence,  as  they  were;  not  in  the  lump,  as  they  are  thrown 
down  before  us. 

But  a  second  error,  which  I  think  the  generality  commit, 
refers  to  this  same  "ambition"  itself.  We  exaggerate  the 
ambition  of  Great  Men;  we  mistake  what  the  nature  of  it  is. 
Great  Men  are  not  ambitious  in  that  sense ;  he  is  a  small 
poor  man  that  is  ambitious  so.  Examine  the  man  who  lives 
in  misery  because  he  does  not  shine  above  other  men ; 
who  goes  about  producing  himself,  pruriently  anxious  about 
his  gifts  and  claims;  struggling  to  force  everybody,  as  it 
were  begging  everybody  for  God's  sake,  to  acknowledge  him 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  2tf 

a  great  man,  and  set  him  over  the  heads  of  men  !  Such  a 
creature  is  among  the  wretchedest  sights  seen  under  this 
sun.  A  great  man  ?  A  poor  morbid  prurient  empty  man  ; 
fitter  for  the  ward  of  a  hospital,  than  for  a  throne  among  men. 
I  advise  you  to  keep  out  of  his  way.  He  cannot  walk  on 
quiet  paths;  unless  you  will  look  at  him,  wonder  at  him, 
write  paragraphs  about  him,  he  cannot  live.  It  is  the  empti- 
ness of  the  man,  not  his  greatness.  Because  there  is  nothing 
in  himself,  he  hungers  and  thirsts  that  you  would  find  some- 
thing in  him.  In  good  truth,  I  believe  no  great  man,  not  so 
much  as  a  genuine  man  who  had  health  and  real  substance 
in  him  of  whatever  magnitude,  was  ever  much  tormented  in 
this  way. 

Your  Cromwell,  what  good  could  it  do  him  to  be  "noticed " 
by  noisy  crowds  of  people  ?  God  his  Maker  already  noticed 
him.  He,  Cromwell,  was  already  there;  no  notice  would 
make  him  other  than  he  already  was.  Till  his  hair  was 
grown  gray;  and  Life  from  the  downhill  slope  was  all  seen 
to  be  limited,  not  infinite  but  finite,  and  all  a  measurable 
matter  how  it  went,  —  he  had  been  content  to  plough  the 
ground,  and  read  his  Bible.  He  in  his  old  days  could  not 
support  it  any  longer,  without  selling  himself  to  Falsehood, 
that  he  might  ride  in  gilt  carriages  to«  Whitehall,  and  have 
clerks  with  bundles  of  papers  hunting  him,  "  Decide  this, 
decide  that,"  which  in  utmost  sorrow  of  heart  no  man  can 
perfectly  decide  !  What  could  gilt  carriages  do  for  this  man? 
From  of  old,  was  there  not  in  his  life  a  weight  of  meaning,  a 
terror  and  a  splendor  as  of  Heaven  itself?  His  existence 
there  as  man  set  him  beyond  the  need  of  gilding.  Death, 
Judgment  and  Eternity :  these  already  lay  as  the  background 
of  whatsoever  he  thought  or  did.  All  his  life  lay  begirt  as 
in  a  sea  of  nameless  Thoughts,  which  no  speech  of  a  mortal 
could  name.     God's  Word,  as  the  Puritan  prophets  of  that 


248  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

time  had  read  it:  this  was  great,  and  all  else  was  little  to 
him.  To  call  such  a  man  "  ambitious,"  to  figure  him  as  the 
prurient  wind-bag  described  above,  seems  to  me  the  poorest 
solecism.  Such  a  man  will  say  :  "  Keep  your  gilt  carriages 
and  huzzaing  mobs,  keep  your  red-tape  clerks,  your  influen- 
tialities,  your  important  businesses.  Leave  me  alone,  leave 
me  alone;  there  is  too  much  of  life  in  me  already!"  Old 
Samuel  Johnson,  the  greatest  soul  in  England  in  his  day, 
was  not  ambitious.  "Corsica  Boswell "  flaunted  at  public 
shows  with  printed  ribbons  round  his  hat;  but  the  great  old 
Samuel  staid  at  home.  The  world-wide  soul  wrapt  up  in 
its  thoughts,  in  its  sorrows;  —  what  could  paradings,  and 
ribbons  in  the  hat,  do  for  it? 

Ah  yes,  I  will  say  again  :  The  great  silent  men  !  Looking 
round  on  the  noisy  inanity  of  the  world,  words  with  little 
meaning,  actions  with  little  worth,  one  loves  to  reflect  on  the 
great  Empire  of  Silence.  The  noble  silent  men,  scattered 
here  and  there,  each  in  his  department;  silently  thinking, 
silently  working;  whom  no  Morning  Newspaper  makes  men- 
tion of!  They  are  the  salt  of  the  Earth.  A  country  that 
has  none  or  few  of  these  is  in  a  bad  way.  Like  a  forest 
which  had  no  roots ;  which  had  all  turned  into  leaves  and 
boughs ;  —  which  must  soon  wither  and  be  no  forest.  Woe 
for  us  if  we  had  nothing  but  what  we  can  show,  or  speak. 
Silence,  the  great  Empire  of  Silence :  higher  than  the  stars  ; 
deeper  than  the  Kingdoms  of  Death  !  It  alone  is  great;  all 
else  is  small.  —  I  hope  we  English  will  long  maintain  our 
grand  talent  pour  le  silence.  Let  others  that  cannot  do 
without  standing  on  barrel-heads,  to  spout,  and  be  seen  of 
all  the  market-place,  cultivate  speech  exclusively,  —  become 
a  most  green  forest  without  roots  !  Solomon  says,  There  is  a 
time  to  speak;  but  also  a  time  to  keep  silence.  Of  some 
great  silent  Samuel,  not  urged  to  writing,  as  old  Samuel 


SILENCE,  THE  GREAT  EMPIRE  OF  SILENCE  :    HIGHER  THAN 
THE  STARS."— Page  248. 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS9  KING.  249 

Johnson  says  he  was,  by  want  of  money,  and  nothing  other, 
one  might  ask,  "  Why  do  not  you  too  get  up  and  speak ;  prom- 
ulgate your  system,  found  your  sect?"  "Truly,"  he  will 
answer,  "  I  am  continent  of  my  thought  hitherto ;  happily  I 
have  yet  had  the  ability  to  keep  it  in  me,  no  compulsion 
strong  enough  to  speak  it.  My  "  system  "  is  not  for  promul- 
gation first  of  all;  it  is  for  serving  myself  to  live  by.  That 
is  the  great  purpose  of  it  to  me.  And  then  the  "  honor  "  ? 
Alas,  yes ;  —  but  as  Cato  said  of  the  statue  :  So  many  statues 
in  that  Forum  of  yours,  may  it  not  be  better  if  they  ask, 

Where  is  Cato's  statue  ?  " 

But  now,  by  way  of  counterpoise  to  this  of  Silence,  let 
me  say  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  ambition ;  one  wholly 
blamable,  the  other  laudable  and  inevitable.  Nature  has 
provided  that  the  great  silent  Samuel  shall  not  be  silent 
too  long.  The  selfish  wish  to  shine  over  others,  let  it  be 
accounted  altogether  poor  and  miserable.  M  Seekest  thou 
great  things,  seek  them  not :  "  this  is  most  true.  And  yet,  I 
say,  there  is  an  irrepressible  tendency  in  every  man  to  de- 
velop himself  according  to  the  magnitude  which  Nature  has 
made  him  of ;  to  speak  out,  to  act  out,  what  Nature  has  laid 
in  him.  This  is  proper,  fit,  inevitable;  nay  it  is  a  duty,  and 
even  the  summary  of  duties  for  a  man.  The  meaning  of  life 
here  on  earth  might  be  defined  as  consisting  in  this  :  To 
unfold  your  self  to  work  what  thing  you  have  the  faculty  for. 
It  is  a  necessity  for  the  human  being,  the  first  law  of  our 
existence.  Coleridge  beautifully  remarks  that  the  infant 
learns  to  speak  by  this  necessity  it  feels.  —  We  will  say 
therefore :  To  decide  about  ambition,  whether  it  is  bad  or 
not,  you  have  two  things  to  take  into  view.  Not  the  cover- 
ing of  the  place  alone,  but  the  fitness  of  the  man  for  the 
place  withal :  that  is  the  question.  Perhaps  the  place  was 
his ;  perhaps  he  had  a  natural  right,  and  even  obligation,  to 


250  LECTURES  0AT  HEROES. 

seek  the  place  !  Mirabeau's  ambition  to  be  Prime  Minister, 
how  shall  we  blame  it,  if  he  were  "  the  only  man  in  France 
that  could  have  done  any  good  there  "?  Hopefuler  perhaps 
had  he  not  so  clearly  felt  how  much  good  he  could  do  !  But 
a  poor  Necker,  who  could  do  no  good,  and  had  even  felt 
that  he  could  do  none,  yet  sitting  broken-hearted  because 
they  had  flung  him  out,  and  he  was  now  quit  of  it,  well  might 
Gibbon  mourn  over  him.  —  Nature,  I  say,  has  provided 
amply  that  the  silent  great  man  shall  strive  to  speak  withal; 
too  amply,  rather ! 

Fancy,  for  example,  you  had  revealed  to  the  brave  old 
Samuel  Johnson,  in  his  shrouded-up  existence,  that  it  was 
possible  for  him  to  do  priceless  divine  work  for  his  country 
and  the  whole  world.  That  the  perfect  Heavenly  Law  might 
be  made  Law  on  this  Earth :  that  the  prayer  he  prayed  daily, 
"  Thy  kingdom  come,"  was  at  length  to  be  fulfilled  !  If  you 
had  convinced  his  judgment  of  this ;  that  it  was  possible, 
practicable  :  that  he  the  mournful  silent  Samuel  was  called 
to  take  apart  in  it!  Would  not  the  whole  soul  of  the  man 
have  flamed  up  into  a  divine  clearness,  into  noble  utterance 
and  determination  to  act;  casting  all  sorrows  and  misgivings 
under  his  feet,  counting  all  affliction  and  contradiction  small, 
—  the  whole  dark  element  of  his  existence  blazing  into 
articulate  radiance  of  light  and  lightning?  It  were  a  true 
ambition  this  !  And  think  now  how  it  actually  was  with 
Cromwell.  From  of  old,  the  sufferings  of  God's  Church, 
true  zealous  Preachers  of  the  truth  flung  into  dungeons, 
whipt,  set  on  pillories,  their  ears  cropt  off,  God's  Gospel- 
cause  trodden  under  foot  of  the  unworthy  :  all  this  had  lain 
heavy  on  his  soul.  Long  years  he  had  looked  upon  it,  in 
silence,  in  prayer;  seeing  no  remedy  on  Earth  ;  trusting  well 
that  a  remedy  in  Heaven's  goodness  would  come, — that 
such  a  course  was  false,  unjust,  and  could  not  last  forever. 


THE  HERO  AS  KIM.  2$  I 

And  now  behold  the  dawn  of  it ;  after  twelve  years  silent 
waiting,  all  England  stirs  itself  ;  there  is  to  be  once  more  a 
Parliament,  the  Right  will  get  a  voice  for  itself  :  inexpressible 
well-grounded  hope  has  come  again  into  the  Earth.  Was 
not  such  a  Parliament  worth  being  a  member  of  ?  Cromwell 
threw  down  his  ploughs,  and  hastened  thither. 

He  spoke  there,  —  rugged  bursts  of  earnestness,  of  a 
self-seen  truth,  where  we  get  a  glimpse  of  them.  He  worked 
there ;  he  fought  and  strove,  like  a  strong  true  giant  of  a 
man,  through  cannon-tumult  and  all  else,  —  on  and  on,  till 
the  Cause  triumphed,  its  once  so  formidable  enemies  all 
swept  from  before  it,  and  the  dawn  of  hope  had  become  clear 
light  of  victory  and  certainty.  That  he  stood  there  as  the 
strongest  soul  of  England,  the  undisputed  Hero  of  all  Eng- 
land,—  what  of  this?  It  was  possible  that  the  Law  of 
Christ's  Gospel  could  now  establish  itself  in  the  world  ! 
The  Theocracy  which  John  Knox  in  his  pulpit  might  dream 
of  as  a  "  devout  imagination,"  this  practical  man,  experi- 
enced in  the  whole  chaos  of  most  rough  practice,  dared  to 
consider  as  capable  of  being  realized.  Those  that  were 
highest  in  Christ's  Church,  the  devoutest  wisest  men,  were 
to  rule  the  land:  in  some  considerable  degree,  it  might  be  so 
and  should  be  so.  Was  it  not  true,  God's  truth  ?  And  if 
true,  was  it  not  then  the  very  thing  to  do  ?  The  strongest 
practical  intellect  in  England  dared  to  answer,  Yes!  This  I 
call  a  noble  true  purpose;  is  it  not,  in  its  own. dialect,  the 
noblest  that  could  enter  into  the  heart  of  Statesman  or  man? 
For  a  Knox  to  take  it  up  was  something ;  but  for  a  Crom- 
well, with  his  great  sound  sense  and  experience  of  what  our 
world  was, —  History,  I  think,  shows  it  only  this  once  in 
such  a  degree.  I  account  it  the  culminating  point  of  Protes- 
tantism ;  the  most  heroic  phasis  that  "  Faith  in  the  Bible  " 
was  appointed  to  exhibit  here  below.     Fancy  it :  that  it  were 


252  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

made  manifest  to  one  of  us,  how  we  could  make  the  Right 
supremely  victorious  over  Wrong,  and  all  that  we  had 
longed  and  prayed  for,  as  the  highest  good  to  England  and 
all  lands,  an  attainable  fact ! 

Well,  I  must  say,  the  vulpine  intellect,  with  its  knowing- 
ness,  its  alertness  and  expertness  in  "detecting  hypocrites,'' 
seems  to  me  a  rather  sorry  business.  We  have  had  but  one 
such  Statesman  in  England ;  one  man,  that  I  can  get  sight 
of,  who  ever  had  in  the  heart  of  him  any  such  purpose  at  all. 
One  man,  in  the  course  of  fifteen  hundred  years ;  and  this 
was  his  welcome.  He  had  adherents  by  the  hundred  or  the 
ten ;  opponents  by  the  million.  Had  England  rallied  all  round 
him,  —  why,  then,  England  might  have  been  a  Christian 
land  !  As  it  is,  vulpine  knowingness  sits  yet  at  its  hopeless 
problem,  "  Given  a  world  of  Knaves,  to  educe  an  Honesty 
from  their  united  action.;"  —  how  cumbrous  a  problem,  you 
may  see  in  Chancery  Law-Courts,  and  some  other  places ! 
Till  at  length,  by  Heaven's  just  anger,  but  also  by  Heaven's 
great  grace,  the  matter  begins  to  stagnate ;  and  this  problem 
is  becoming  to  all  men  a  palpably  hopeless  one. 

But  with  regard  to  Cromwell  and  his  purposes  :  Hume, 
and  a  multitude  following  him,  come  upon  me  here  with  an 
admission  that  Cromwell  was  sincere  at  first ;  a  sincere 
u  Fanatic  "  at  first,  but  gradually  became  a  "  Hypocrite  "  as 
things  opened  round  him.  This  of  the  Fanatic-Hypocrite 
is  Hume's  theory  of  it ;  extensively  applied  since,  —  to 
Mahomet  and  many  others.  Think  of  it  seriously,  you  will 
find  something  in  it;  not  much,  not  all,  very  far  from  all. 
Sincere  hero  hearts  do  not  sink  in  this  miserable  manner. 
The  Sun  flings  forth  impurities,  gets  balefully  incrusted  with 
spots ;  but  it  does  not  quench  itself,  and  become  no  Sun  at 
all,  but  a  mass  of  Darkness  !     I  will  venture  to  say  that  such 


THE  HERO   AS  KING.  253 

never  befell  a  great  deep  Cromwell ;  I  think,  never.  Nature's 
own  lion-hearted  Son ;  Antaeus-like,  his  strength  is  got  by 
touching  the  Earth,  his  Mother;  lift  him  up  from  the  Earth, 
lift  him  up  into  Hypocrisy,  Inanity,  his  strength  is  gone.  We 
will  not  assert  that  Cromwell  was  an  immaculate  man ;  that 
he  fell  into  no  faults,  no  insincerities  among  the  rest.  He 
was  no  dilettante  professor  of  "  perfections,"  "  immaculate 
conducts."  He  was  a  rugged  Orson,  rending  his  rough  way 
through  actual  true  work,  —  doubtless  with  many  a  fall 
therein.  Insincerities,  faults,  very  many  faults  daily  and 
hourly :  it  was  too  well  known  to  him  ;  known  to  God  and 
him  !  The  Sun  was  dimmed  many  a  time  ;  but  the  Sun  had 
not  himself  grown  a  Dimness.  Cromwell's  last  words,  as  he 
lay  waiting  for  death,  are  those  of  a  Christian  heroic  man. 
Broken  prayers  to  God,  that  He  would  judge  him  and  this 
Cause,  He  since  man  could  not,  in  justice  yet  in  pity.  They 
are  most  touching  words.  He  breathed  out  his  wild  great 
soul,  its  toils  and  sins  all  ended  now,  into  the  presence  of 
his  Maker,  in  this  manner. 

I,  for  one,  will  not  call  the  man  a  Hypocrite  !  Hypocrite, 
mummer,  the  life  of  him  a  mere  theatricality;  empty 
barren  quack,  hungry  for  the  shouts  of  mobs  ?  The  man 
had  made  obscurity  do  very  well  for  him  till  his  head 
was  gray ;  and  now  he  was,  there  as  he  stood  recognized 
unblamed,  the  virtual  King  of  England.  Cannot  a  man  do 
without  King's  Coaches  and  Cloaks  ?  Is  it  such  a  blessed- 
ness to  have  clerks  forever  pestering  you  with  bundles  of 
papers  in  red  tape  ?  A  simple  Diocletian  prefers  planting 
of  cabbages  ;  a  George  Washington,  no  very  immeasurable 
man,  does  the  like.  One  would  say,  it  is  what  any  genuine 
man  could  do ;  and  would  do.  The  instant  his  real  work 
were  out  in  the  matter  of  Kingship,  — away  with  it ! 

Let  us  remark,  meanwhile,  how  indispensable  everywhere 


254  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

a  King  is,  in  all  movements  of  men.  It  is  strikingly  shown, 
in  this  very  War,  what  becomes  of  men  when  they  cannot 
find  a  Chief  Man,  and  their  enemies  can.  The  Scotch 
Nation  was  all  but  unanimous  in  Puritanism;  zealous  and  of 
one  mind  about  it,  as  in  this  English  end  of  the  Island  was 
always  far  from  being  the  case.  But  there  was  no  great 
Cromwell  among  them  ;  poor  tremulous,  hesitating,  diplo- 
matic Argyles  and  suchlike ;  none  of  them  had  a  heart  true 
enough  for  the  truth,  or  durst  commit  himself  to  the  truth. 
They  had  no  leader;  and  the  scattered  Cavalier  party  in  that 
country  had  one  :  Montrose,  the  noblest  of  all  the  Cavaliers  ; 
an  accomplished,  gallant-hearted,  splendid  man ;  what  one 
may  call  the  Hero-Cavalier.  Well,  look  at  it;  on  the  one 
hand  subjects  without  a  King;  on  the  other  a  King  without 
subjects  !  The  subjects  without  King  can  do  nothing ;  the 
subjectless  King  can  do  something.  This  Montrose,  with  a 
handful  of  Irish  or  Highland  savages,  few  of  them  so  much 
as  guns  in  their  hands,  dashes  at  the  drilled  Puritan  armies 
like  a  wild  whirlwind  ;  sweeps  them,  time  after  time,  some 
five  times  over,  from  the  field  before  him.  He  was  at  one 
period,  for  a  short  while,  master  of  all  Scotland.  One  man  ; 
but  he  was  a  man  :  a  million  zealous  men,  but  without  the 
one  ;  they  against  him  were  powerless  !  Perhaps  of  all  the 
persons  in  that  Puritan  struggle,  from  first  to  last,  the  single 
indispensable  one  was  verily  Cromwell.  To  see  and  dare,  and 
decide ;  to  be  a  fixed  pillar  in  the  welter  of  uncertainty ;  —  a 
King  among  them,  whether  they  called  him  so  or  not. 

Precisely  here,  however,  lies  the  rub  for  Cromwell.  His 
other  proceedings  have  all  found  advocates,  and  stand  gen- 
erally justified;  but  this  dismissal  of  the  Rump  Parliament 
and  assumption  of  the  Protectorship,  is  what  no  one  can 
pardon  him.     He  had  fairly  grown  to  be  King  in  England; 


THE   HERO   AS  KING.  255 

Chief  Man  of  the  victorious  party  in  England :  but  it  seems 
he  could  not  do  without  the  King's  Cloak,  and  sold  himself 
to  perdition  in  order  to  get  it.  Let  us  see  a  little  how  this 
was. 

England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  all  lying  now  subdued  at  the 
feet  of  the  Puritan  Parliament,  the  practical  question  arose, 
What  was  to  be  done  with  it?  How  will,  you  govern  these 
Nations,  which  Providence  in  a  wondrous  way  has  given  up 
to  your  disposal  ?  Clearly  those  hundred  surviving  members 
of  the  Long  Parliament,  who  sit  there  as  supreme  authority, 
cannot  continue  forever  to  sit.  What  is  to  be  done  ? — 
It  was  a  question  which  theoretical  constitution  builders 
may  find  easy  to  answer;  but  to  Cromwell,  looking  there 
into  the  real  practical  facts  of  it,  there  could  be  none  more 
complicated.  He  asked  of  the  Parliament,  What  it  was 
they  would  decide  upon  ?  It  was  for  the  Parliament  to  say. 
Yet  the  Soldiers  too,  however  contrary  to  Formula,  they 
who  had  purchased  this  victory  with  their  blood,  it  seemed 
to  them  that  they  also  should  have  something  to  say  in  it! 
We  will  not  "  For  all  our  fighting  have  nothing  but  a  little 
piece  of  paper."  We  understand  that  the  Law  of  God's 
Gospel,  to  which  He  through  us  has  given  the  victory*  shall 
establish  itself,  or  try  to  establish  itself,  in  this  land  ! 

For  three  years,  Cromwell  says,  this  question  had  been 
sounded  in  the  ears  of  the  Parliament.  They  could  make 
no  answer ;  nothing  but  talk,  talk.  Perhaps  it  lies  in  the 
nature  of  parliamentary  bodies ;  perhaps  no  Parliament 
could  in  such  case  make  any  answer  but  even  that  of  talk, 
talk  i  Nevertheless  the  question  must  and  shall  be  answered. 
You  sixty  men  there,  becoming  fast  odious,  even  despicable, 
to  the  whole  nation,  whom  the  nation  already  calls  Rump 
Parliament, yon  cannot  continue  to  sit  there:  who  or  what 
then  is  to  follow?     "Free  Parliament,"   right  of   Election, 


256  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Constitutional  Formulas  of  one  sort  or  the  other,  —  the 
thing  is  a  hungry  Fact  coming  on  us,  which  we  must  answer 
or  be  devoured  by  it !  And  who  are  you  that  prate  of  Con- 
stitutional Formulas,  rights  of  Parliament  ?  You  have  had 
to  kill  your  King,  to  make  Pride's  Purges,  to  expel  and  ban- 
ish by  the  law  of  the  stronger  whosoever  would  not  let  your 
Cause  prosper :  there  are  but  fifty  or  threescore  of  you  left 
there,  debating  in  these  days.  Tell  us  what  we  shall  do: 
not  in  the  way  of  Formula,  but  of  practicable  Fact ! 

How  they  did  finally  answer,  remains  obscure  to  this  day. 
The  diligent  Godwin  himself  admits  that  he  cannot  make  it 
out.  The  likeliest  is,  that  this  poor  Parliament  still  would 
not,  and  indeed  could  not  dissolve  and  disperse ;  that  when 
it  came  to  the  point  of  actually  dispersing,  they  again,  for 
the  tenth  or  twentieth  time,  adjourned  it. — and  Cromwell's 
patience  failed  him.  But  we  will  take  the  favorablest 
hypothesis  ever  started  for  the  Parliament :  the  favorablest, 
though  I  believe  it  is  not  the  true  one,  but  too  favorable. 

According  to  this  version :  At  the  uttermost  crisis,  when 
Cromwell  and  his  Officers  were  met  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  fifty  or  sixty  Rump  Members  on  the  other,  it  was  sud- 
denly told  Cromwell  that  the  Rump  in  its  despair  was 
answering  in  a  very  singular  way;  that  in  their  splenetic 
envious  despair,  to  keep  out  the  Army  at  least,  these  men 
were  hurrying  through  the  House  a  kind  of  Reform  Bill,  — 
Parliament  to  be  chosen  by  the  whole  of  England  ;  equable 
electoral  division  into  districts;  free  suffrage,  and  the  rest 
of  it!  A  very  questionable,  or  indeed  for  them  an  unques- 
tionable thing.  Reform  Bill,  free  suffrage  of  Englishmen  ? 
Why,  the  Royalists  themselves,  silenced  indeed  but  not 
exterminated,  perhaps  outnuw&er  us;  the  great  numerical 
majority  of  England  was  always  indifferent  to  our  Cause, 
merely  looked  at  it  and  submitted  to  it.    It  is  in  weight  and 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  257 

force,  not  by  counting  of  heads,  that  we  are  the  majority  ! 
And  now  with  your  Formulas  and  Reform  Bills,  the  whole 
matter,  sorely  won  by  our  swords,  shall  again  launch  itself 
to  sea;  become  a  mere  hope,  and  likelihood,  swat? even  as 
a  likelihood?  And  it  is  not  a  likelihood;  it  is  a  certainty, 
which  we  have  won,  by  God's  strength  and  our  own  right 
hands,  and  do  now  hold  here.  Cromwell  walked  down  to 
these  refractory  Members  ;  interrupted  them  in  that  rapid 
speed  of  their  Reform  Bill; — ordered  them  to  be  gone,  and 
talk  there  no  more.  —  Can  we  not  forgive  him?  Can  we  not 
understand  him  ?  John  Milton,  who  looked  on  it  all  near  at 
hand,  could  applaud  him.  The  Reality  had  swept  the  For- 
mulas away  before  it.  I  fancy,  most  men  who  were  realities 
in  England  might  see  into  the  necessity  of  that. 

The  strong  daring  man,  therefore,  has  set  all  manner  of 
Formulas  and  logical  superficialities  against  him;  has  dared 
appeal  to  the  genuine  Fact  of  this  England,  Whether  it  will 
support  him  or  not  ?  It  is  curious  to  see  how  he  struggles 
to  govern  in  some  constitutional  way;  find  some  Parliament 
to  support  him;  but  cannot.  His  first  Parliament,  the  one 
they  call  Barebones's  Parliament,  is,  so  to  speak,  a  Con- 
vocation of  the  Notables.  From  all  quarters  of  England 
the  leading  Ministers  and  chief  Puritan  Officials  nominate  the 
men  most  distinguished  by  religious  reputation,  influence 
and  attachment  to  the  true  Cause :  these  are  assembled  to 
shape  out  a  plan.  They  sanctioned  what  was  past ;  shaped 
as  they  could  what  was  to  come.  They  were  scornfully 
called  Barebones's  Parliament :  the  man's  name,  it  seems, 
was  not  Barebones,  but  Barbone,  —  a  good  enough  man. 
Nor  was  it  a  jest,  their  work ;  it  was  a  most  serious  reality, 
—  a  trial  on  the  part  of  these  Puritan  Notables  how  far  the 
Law  of  Christ  could  become  the  Law  of  this  England. 
There  were  men  of  sense  among  them,  men  of  some  quality; 


258  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

men  of  deep  piety  I  suppose  the  most  of  them  were.  They 
failed,  it  seems,  and  broke  down,  endeavoring  to  reform  the 
Court  of  Chancery !  They  dissolved  themselves,  as  incom- 
petent; delivered  up  their  power  again  into  the  hands  of  the 
Lord  General  Cromwell,  to  do  with  it  what  he  liked  and 
could. 

What  will  he  do  with  it  ?  The  Lord  General  Cromwell, 
"Commander-in-chief  of  all  the  Forces  raised  and  to  be 
raised ; "  he  hereby  sees  himself,  at  this  unexampled  junc- 
ture, as  it  were  the  one  available  Authority  left  in  England, 
nothing  between  England  and  utter  Anarchy  but  him  alone. 
Such  is  the  undeniable  Fact  of  his  position  and  England's, 
there  and  then.  What  will  he  do  with  it  ?  After  delibera- 
tion, he  decides  that  he  will  accept  it;  will  formally,  with 
public  solemnity,  say  and  vow  before  God  and  men,  "  Yes, 
the  Fact  is  so,  and  I  will  do  the  best  I  can  with  it !  "  Pro- 
tectorship, Instrument  of  Government,  —  these  are  the  exter- 
nal forms  of  the  thing;  worked  out  and  sanctioned  as  they 
could  in  the  circumstances  be,  by  the  Judges,  by  the  leading 
Official  people,  "  Council  of  Officers  and  Persons  of  interest 
in  the  Nation : "  and  as  for  the  thing  itself,  undeniably 
enough,  at  the  pass  matters  had  now  come  to,  there  was  no 
alternative  but  Anarchy  or  that.  Puritan  England  might 
accept  it  or  not;  but  Puritan  England  was,  in  real  truth, 
saved  from  suicide  thereby!  —  I  believe  the  Puritan  People 
did,  in  an  inarticulate,  grumbling,  yet  on  the  whole  grateful 
and  real  way,  accept  this  anomalous  act  of  Oliver's ;  at 
least,  he  and  they  together  made  it  good,  and  always  better 
to  the  last  But  in  their  Parliamentary  articulate  way. 
they  had  their  difficulties,  and  never  knew  fully  what  to  say 
to  it! 

Oliver's  second  Parliament,  properly  his  first  regular  Par- 
liament, chosen  by  the  rule  laid  down  in  the  Instrument  o( 


CROMWELL  AND  HIS  MOTHER.  —Page  262. 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO   AS  KING.  259 

Government,  did  assemble,  and  worked ;  —  but  got,  before 
long,  into  bottomless  questions  as  to  the  Protector's  right, 
as  to  "usurpation,"  and  so  forth;  and  had  at  the  earliest 
legal  day  to  be  dismissed.  Cromwell's  concluding  Speech 
to  these  men  is  a  remarkable  one.  So  likewise  to  his  third 
Parliament,  in  similar  rebuke  for  their  pedantries  and  obsti- 
nacies. Most  rude,  chaotic,  all  these  Speeches  are ;  but 
most  earnest-looking.  You  would  say,  it  was  a  sincere 
helpless  man ;  not  used  to  speak  the  great  inorganic  thought 
of  him,  but  to  act  it  rather !  A  helplessness  of  utterance, 
in  such  bursting  fulness  of  meaning.  He  talks  much  about 
"births  of  Providence:"  All  these  changes,  so  many  victo- 
ries and  events,  were  not  forethoughts,  and  theatrical  con- 
trivances of  men,  of  me  or  of  men;  it  is  blind  blasphemers 
that  will  persist  in  calling  them  so !  He  insists  with  a  heavy 
sulphurous  wrathful  emphasis  on  this.  As  he  well  might. 
As  if  a  Cromwell  in  that  dark  huge  game  he  had  been  play- 
ing, the  world  wholly  thrown  into  chaos  round  him,  had 
foreseen  it  all,  and  played  it  all  off  like  a  precontrived  puppet- 
show  by  wood  and  wire  !  These  things  were  foreseen  by  no 
man,  he  says;  no  man  could  tell  what  a  day  would  bring 
forth  :  they  were  "  births  of  Providence,"  God's  finger  guided 
us  on,  and  we  came  at  last  to  clear  height  of  victory,  God's 
Cause  triumphant  in  these  Nations;  and  you  as  a  Parlia- 
ment could  assemble  together,  and  say  in  what  manner  all 
this  could  be  organized,  reduced  into  rational  feasibility 
among  the  affairs  of  men.  You  were  to  help  with  your  wise 
counsel  in  doing  that.  "  You  have  had  such  an  opportunity 
as  no  Parliament  in  England  ever  had."  Christ's  Law,  the 
Right  and  True,  was  to  be  in  some  measure  made  the  Law 
of  this  land.  In  place  of  that,  you  have  got  into  your  idle 
pedantries,  constitutionalities,  bottomless  cavillings  and  ques- 
tionings  about  written   laws  for  my  coming  here;  —  and 


2<5o  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

would  send  the  whole  matter  in  Chaos  again,  because  I  have 
no  Notary's  parchment,  but  only  God's  voice  from  the  battle- 
whirlwind,  for  being  President  among  you !  That  opportu- 
nity is  gone ;  and  we  know  not  when  it  will  return.  You  have 
had  your  constitutional  Logic;  and  Mammon's  Law,  not 
Christ's  Law,  rules  yet  in  this  land.  "  God  be  judge  between 
you  and  me  !  "  These  are  his  final  words  to  them :  Take  you 
your  constitution-formulas  in  your  hand ;  and  I  my  ///formal 
struggles,  purposes,  realities  and  acts ;  and  "  God  be  judge 
between  you  and  me  !  " 

We  said  above  what  shapeless,  involved  chaotic  things 
the  printed  Speeches  of  Cromwell  are.  Wilfully  ambigu- 
ous, unintelligible,  say  the  most:  a  hypocrite  shrouding 
himself  in  confused  Jesuitic  jargon  !  To  me  they  do  not 
seem  so.  I  will  say  rather,  they  afforded  the  first  glimpses 
I  could  ever  get  into  the  reality  of  this  Cromwell,  nay  into 
the  possibility  of  him.  Try  to  believe  that  he  means  some- 
thing, search  lovingly  what  that  may  be :  you  will  find  a  real 
speech  lying  imprisoned  in  these  broken  rude  tortuous  utter- 
ances; a  meaning  in  the  great  heart  of  this  inarticulate  man ! 
You  will,  for  the  first  time,  begin  to  see  that  he  was  a  man ; 
not  an  enigmatic  chimera,  unintelligible  to  you,  incredible 
to  you.  The  Histories  and  Biographies  written  of  this 
Cromwell,  written  in  shallow  sceptical  generations  that  could 
not  know  or  conceive  of  a  deep  believing  man,  are  far  more 
obscure  than  Cromwell's  Speeches.  You  look  through  them 
only  into  the  infinite  vague  of  Black  and  the  Inane.  "  Heats 
and  jealousies,"  says  Lord  Clarendon  himself:  "heats  and 
jealousies,"  mere  crabbed  whims,  theories  and  crotchets ; 
these  induced  slow  sober  quiet  Englishmen  to  lay  down  their 
ploughs  and  work;  and  fly  into  red  fury  of  confused  war 
against  the  best-conditioned  of  Kings  !  Try  if  you  can  find 
that  true.     Scepticism  writing  about  Belief  may  have  great 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  26 1 

gifts;  but  it  is  really  ultra  vires  there.  It  is  Blindness 
laying  down  the  Laws  of  Optics. 

Cromwell's  third  Parliament  split  on  the  same  rock  as  his 
second.  Ever  the  constitutional  Formula :  How  came  you 
there  ?  Show  us  some  Notary  parchment !  Blind  pedants  : 
—  '.'Why,  surely  the  same  power  which  makes  you  a  Parlia- 
ment, that,  and  something  more,  made  me  a  Protector!  "  If 
my  Protectorship  is  nothing,  what  in  the  name  of  wonder  is 
your  Parliamenteership,  a  reflex  and  creation  of  that  ? 

Parliaments  having  failed,  there  remained  nothing  but  the 
way  of  Despotism.  Military  Dictators,  each  with  his  dis- 
trict, to  coerce  the  Royalist  and  other  gainsayers,  to  govern 
them,  if  not  by  act  of  Parliament,  then  by  the  sword.  For- 
mula shall  not  carry  it,  while  the  Reality  is  here !  I  will  go 
on,  protecting  oppressed  Protestants  abroad,  'appointing  just 
judges,  wise  managers,  at  home,  cherishing  true  Gospel 
ministers ;  doing  the  best  I  can  to  make  England  a  Chris- 
tian England,  greater  than  old  Rome,  the  Queen  of  Protes- 
tant Christianity  ;  I,  since  you  will  not  help  me ;  I  while 
God  leaves  me  life  !  —  Why  did  he  not  give  it  up ;  retire  into 
obscurity  again,  since  the  Law  would  not  acknowledge  him? 
cry  several.  That  is  where  they  mistake.  For  him  there 
was  no  giving  of  it  up!  Prime  Ministers  have  governed 
countries,  Pitt,  Pombal,  Choiseul ;  and  their  word  was  a  law 
while  it  held:  but  this  Prime  Minister  was  one  that  could 
?wt  get  resigned.  Let  him  once  resign,  Charles  Stuart  and 
the  Cavaliers  waited  to  kill  him;  to  kill  the  Cause  and  him. 
Once  embarked,  there  is  no  retreat,  no  return.  This  Prime 
Minister  could  retire  no-whither  except  into  his  tomb. 

One  is  sorry  for  Cromwell  in  his  old  days.  His  complaint 
is  incessant  of  the  heavy  burden  Providence  has  laid  on 
him.  Heavy;  which  he  must  bear  till  death.  Old  Colonel 
Hutchinson,  as  his  wife  relates  it,  Hutchinson,  his  old  battle- 


262  LECTURES    OAT  HEROES. 

mate,  coming  to  see  him  on  some  indispensable  business, 
much  against  his  will,  —  Cromwell  "  follows  him  to  the  door,'' 
in  a  most  fraternal,  domestic,  conciliatory  style :  begs  that 
he  would  be  reconciled  to  him,  his  old  brother  in  arms ;  says 
how  much  it  grieves  him  to  be  misunderstood,  deserted  by 
true  fellow-soldiers,  dear  to  him  from  of  old :  the  rigorous 
Hutchinson,  cased  in  his  Republican  formula,  sullenly  goes 
his  way.  —  And  the  man's  head  now  white ;  his  strong  arm 
growing  weary  with  its  long  work  !  I  think  always  too  of 
his  poor  Mother,  now  very  old,  living  in  that  Palace  of  his ; 
a  right  brave  woman ;  as  indeed  they  lived  all  an  honest 
God-fearing  Household  there  :  if  she  heard  a  shot  go  off,  she 
thought  it  was  her  son  killed.  He  had  to  come  to  her  at 
least  once  a  day,  that  she  might  see  with  her  own  eyes  that 

he  ivas  yet  living.     The  poor  old   Mother! What  had 

this  man  gained;  what  had  he  gained?  He  had  a  life  of 
sore  strife  and  toil,  to  his  last  day.  Fame,  ambition,  place  in 
History?  His  dead  body  was  hung  in  chains;  his  "place 
in  History,"  —  place  in  History  forsooth  !  —  has  been  a  place 
of  ignominy,  accusation,  blackness  and  disgrace ;  and  here, 
this  day,  who  knows  if  it  is  not  rash  in  me  to  be  among  the 
first  that  ever  ventured  to  pronounce  him  not  a  knave  and 
liar,  but  a  genuinely  honest  man !  Peace  to  him.  Did  he 
not,  in  spite  of  all,  accomplish  much  for  us  ?  We  walk 
smoothly  over  his  great  rough  heroic  life ;  step  over  his  body 
sunk  in  the  ditch  there.  We  need  not  spurn  it,  as  we  step 
on  it!  —  Let  the  Hero  rest.  It  was  not  to  men's  judgment 
that  he  appealed ;  nor  have  men  judged  him  very  well. 

Precisely  a  century  and  a  year  after  this  of  Puritanism 
had  got  itself  hushed  up  into  decent  composure,  and  its 
results  made  smooth,  in  1688,  there  broke  out  a  far  deeper 
explosion,  much  more  difficult  to  hush   up,  known   to  all 


RETURN  OF  MANKIND  TO  REALITY  AND  FACT."— Page  263. 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  263 

mortals,  and  like  to  be  long  known,  by  the  name  of  French 
Revolution.  It  is  properly  the  third  and  final  act  of  Protes- 
tantism ;  the  explosive  confused  return  of  mankind  to  Real- 
ity and  Fact,  now  that  they  were  perishing  of  Semblance  and 
Sham.  We  call  our  English  Puritanism  the  second  act: 
"  Well  then,  the  Bible  is  true ;  let  us  go  by  the  Bible  !  "  "In 
Church,"  said  Luther;  "In  Church  and  State,"  said  Crom- 
well, "let  us  go  by  what  actually  is  God's  Truth."  Men 
have  to  return  to  reality;  they  cannot  live  on  semblance. 
The  French  Revolution,  or  third  act,  we  may  well  call  the 
final  one;  for  lower  than  that  savage  Sansculottism  men 
cannot  go.  They  stand  there  on  the  nakedest  haggard  Fact, 
undeniable  in  all  seasons  and  circumstances ;  and  may  and 
must  begin  again  confidently  to  build  up  from  that.  The 
French  explosion,  like  the  English  one,  got  its  King,  — who 
had  no  Notary  parchment  to  show  for  himself.  We  have 
still  to  glance  for  a  moment  at  Napoleon,  our  second  modern 
King. 

Napoleon  does  by  no  means  seem  to  me  so  great  a  man 
as  Cromwell.  His  enormous  victories  which  reached  over 
all  Europe,  while  Cromwell  abode  mainly  in  our  little  Eng- 
land, are  but  as  the  high  stilts  on  which  the  man  is  seen 
standing;  the  stature  of  the  man  is  not  altered  thereby.  1 
find  in  him  no  such  sincerity  as  in  Cromwell;  only  a  far 
inferior  sort.  No  silent  walking,  through  long  years,  with 
the  Awful  Unnamable  of  this  Universe;  "walking  with 
God,"  as  he  called  it;  and  faith  and  strength  in  that  alone: 
latent  thought  and  valor,  content  to  lie  latent,  then  burst  out 
as  in  blaze  of  Heaven's  lightning!  Napoleon  lived  in  an 
age  when  God  was  no  longer  believed ;  the  meaning  of  all 
silence,  Latency,  was  thought  to  be  Nonentity :  he  had  to 
begin  not  out  of  the  Puritan  Bible,  but  out  of  poor  Sceptical 
Encyclopedies.     This  was  the  length  the   man   carried   it 


264  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

Meritorious  to  get  so  far.  His  compact,  prompt,  every  way 
articulate  character  is  in  itself  perhaps  small,  compared  with 
our  great  chaotic  Particulate  Cromwell's.  Instead  of  "  dumb 
Prophet  struggling  to  speak,"  we  have  a  portentous  mixture 
of  the  Ouack  withal!  Hume's  notion  of  the  Fanatic-Hypo- 
crite, with  such  truth  as  it  has,  will  apply  much  better  to 
Napoleon  than  it  did  to  Cromwell,  to  Mahomet  or  the  like, 
—  where  indeed  taken  strictly  it  has  hardly  any  truth  at  all. 
An  element  of  blamable  ambition  shows  itself,  from  the  first, 
in  this  man ;  gets  the  victory  over  him  at  last,  and  involves 
him  and  his  work  in  ruin. 

"  False  as  a  bulletin "  became  a  proverb  in  Napoleon's 
time.  He  makes  what  excuse  he  could  for  it :  that  it  was 
necessary  to  mislead  the  enemy,  to  keep  up  his  own  men's 
courage,  and  so  forth.  On  the  whole,  there  are  no  excuses. 
A  man  in  no  case  has  liberty  to  tell  lies.  It  had  been,  in  the 
long  run,  better  for  Napoleon  too  if  he  had  not  told  any.  In 
fact,  if  a  man  have  any  purpose  reaching  beyond  the  hour 
and  day,  meant  to  be  found  extant  7iext  day,  what  good  can 
it  ever  be  to  promulgate  lies?  The  lies  are  found  out; 
ruinous  penalty  is  exacted  for  them.  No  man  will  believe 
the  liar  next  time  even  when  he  speaks  truth,  when  it  is  of  the 
last  importance  that  he  be  believed.  The  old  cry  of  wolf !  — 
A  Lie  is  no-th'mg;  you  cannot  of  nothing  make  something; 
you  make  nothing  at  last,  and  lose  your  labor  into  the 
bargain. 

Yet  Napoleon  had  a  sincerity :  we  are  to  distinguish 
between  what  is  superficial  and  what  is  fundamental  in  insin- 
cerity. Across  these  outer  manceuvrings  and  quackeries  of 
his,  which  were  many  and  most  blamable,  let  us  discern 
withal  that  the  man  had  a  certain  instinctive  ineradicable 
feeling  for  reality ;  and  did  base  himself  upon  fact,  so  long 
as  he  had  any  basis.     He  has  an  instinct  of  Nature  better 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  265 

than  his  culture  was.  His  savans,  Bourrienne  tells  us,  in 
that  voyage  to  Egypt  were  one  evening  busily  occupied 
arguing  that  there  could  be  no  God.  They  had  proved  it, 
to  their  satisfaction,  by  all  manner  of  logic.  Napoleon  look- 
ing up  into  the  stars,  answers,  "Very  ingenious,  Messieurs  : 
but  who  made  all  that  ?  "  The  Atheistic  logic  runs  off  from 
him  like  water ;  the  great  Fact  stares  him  in  the  face : 
"Who  made  all  that?"  So  too  in  Practice:  he,  as  every 
man  that  can  be  great,  or  have  victory  in  this  world,  sees, 
through  all  entanglements,  the  practical  heart  of  the  matter ; 
drives  straight  towards  that.  When  the  steward  of  his 
Tuileries  Palace  was  exhibiting  the  new  upholstery,  with 
praises,  and  demonstration  how  glorious  it  was,  and  how 
cheap  withal,  Napoleon,  making  little  answer,  asked  for  a 
pair  of  scissors,  dipt  one  of  the  gold  tassels  from  a  window- 
curtain,  put  it  in  his  pocket,  and  walked  on.  Some  days 
afterwards,  he  produced  it  at  the  right  moment,  to  the  horror 
of  his  upholstery  functionary;  it  was  not  gold  but  tinsel! 
In  Saint  Helena,  it  is  notable  how  he  still,  to  his  last  days, 
insists  on  the  practical,  the  real.  "  Why  talk  and  complain ; 
above  all,  why  quarrel  with  one  another?  There  is  no  result 
in  it ;  it  comes  to  nothing  that  one  can  do.  Say  nothing,  if 
one  man  can  do  nothing !  *'  He  speaks  often  so,  to  his  poor 
discontented  followers ;  he  is  like  a  piece  of  silent  strength 
in  the  middle  of  their  morbid  querulousness  there. 

And  accordingly  was  there  not  what  we  call  a  faith  in 
him,  genuine  so  far  as  it  went?  Tlmt  this  new  enormous 
Democracy  asserting  itself  here  in  the  French  Revolution  is 
an  insuppressible  Fact,  which  the  whole  world,  with  its  old 
forces  and  institutions,  cannot  put  down :  this  was  a  true 
insight  of  his,  and  took  his  conscience  and  enthusiasm  along 
with  it,  —  a  faith.  And  did  he  not  interpret  the  dim  pur- 
port  of  it    well  ?     "  La  carrib'e   ouverte  anx   talens,  The 


266  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

implements  to  him  who  can  handle  them : "  this  actually  is 
the  truth,  and  even  the  whole  truth  ;  it  includes  whatever  the 
French  Revolution,  or  any  Revolution,  could  mean.  Napo- 
leon, in  his  first  period,  was  a  true  Democrat.  And  yet  by 
the  nature  of  him,  fostered  too  by  his  military  trade,  he  knew 
that  Democracy,  if  it  were  a  true  thing  at  all,  could  not  be 
an  anarchy:  the  man  had  a  heart-hatred  for  anarchy.  On 
that  Twentieth  of  June  ( 1792),  Bourrienne  and  he  sat  in  a 
coffee-house,  as  the  mob  rolled  by :  Napoleon  expresses  the 
deepest  contempt  for  persons  in  authority  that  they  do  not 
restrain  this  rabble.  On  the  Tenth  of  August  he  wonders 
why  there  is  no  man  to  command  these  poor  Swiss ;  they 
would  conquer  if  there  were.  Such  a  faith  in  Democracy, 
yet  hatred  of  anarchy,  it  is  that  carries  Napoleon  through  all 
his  great  work.  Through  his  brilliant  Italian  Campaigns, 
onwards  to  the  Peace  of  Leoben,  one  would  say,  his  inspira- 
tion is :  "  Triumph  to  the  French  Revolution ;  assertion  of 
it  against  these  Austrian  Simulacra  that  pretend  to  call  it  a 
Sinjulacrum  ! "  Withal,  however,  he  feels,  and  has  a  right 
to  feel,  how  necessary  a  strong  Authority  is  ;  how  the  Revo- 
lution cannot  prosper  or  last  without  such.  To  bridle  in 
that  great  devouring,  self-devouring  French  Revolution ;  to 
tame  it,  so  that  its  intrinsic  purpose  can  be  made  good,  that 
it  may  become  organic,  and  be  able  to  live  among  other  or- 
ganisms and  formed  things,  not  as  a  wasting  destruction 
alone :  is  not  this  still  what  he  partly  aimed  at,  as  the  true 
purport  of  his  life ;  nay  what  he  actually  managed  to  do  ? 
through  Wagrams,  Austerlitzes ;  triumph  after  triumph,  —  he 
triumphed  so  far.  There  was  an  eye  to  see  in  this  man,  a 
soul  to  dare  and  do.  He  rose  naturally  to  be  the  King.  All 
men  saw  that  he  was  such.  The  common  soldiers  used  to 
say  on  the  march  :  "  These  babbling  Avocats,  up  at  Paris  ; 
all   talk   and  no  work.     What  wonder  it  runs  all  wrong? 


THE  HERO  AS  KING.  26j 

We  shall  have  to  go  and  put  our  Petit  Caporal  there  ! " 
They  went,  and  put  him  there ;  they  and  France  at  large. 
Chief -consulship,  Emperorship,  victory  over  Europe  ;  —  till 
the  poor  Lieutenant  of  La  Fere,  not  unnaturally,  might  seem 
to  himself  the  greatest  of  all  men  that  had  been  in  the  world 
for  some  ages. 

But  at  this  point,  I  think,  the  fatal  charlatan-element  got 
the  upper  hand.  He  apostatized  from  his  old  faith  in  Facts, 
took  to  believing  in  Semblances ;  strove  to  connect  himself 
with  Austrian  Dynasties,  Popedoms,  with  the  old  false  Feu- 
dalities which  he  once  saw  clearly  to  be  false  ;  —  considered 
that  he  would  found  "  his  Dynasty  "  and  so  forth ;  that  the 
enormous  French  Revolution  meant  only  that !  The  man 
was  "  given  up  to  strong  delusion,  that  he  should  believe  a 
lie ;  "  a  fearful  but  most  sure  thing.  He  did  not  know  true 
from  false  now  when  he  looked  at  them,  —  the  fearfulest 
penalty  a  man  pays  for  yielding  to  untruth  of  heart.  Self 
and  false  ambition  had  now  become  his  god :  j^deception 
once  yielded  to,  all  other  deceptions  follow  naturally  more 
and  more.  What  a  paltry  patchwork  of  theatrical  paper- 
mantles,  tinsel  and  mummery,  had  this  man  wrapt  his  own 
great  reality  in,  thinking  to  make  it  more  real  thereby!  His 
hollow  Pope's- Concordat,  pretending  to  be  a  re-establish- 
ment of  Catholicism,  felt  by  himself  to  be  the  method  of 
extirpating  it,  "  la  vaccine  de  la  religion  : "'  his  ceremonial 
Coronations,  consecrations  by  the  old  Italian  Chimera  in 
Notre-Dame,  —  "wanting  nothing  to  complete  the  pomp  of 
it,"'  as  Augereau  said,  "nothing  but  the  half-million  of  men 
who  had  died  to  put  an  end  to  all  that '' !  Cromwell's  Inau- 
guration was  by  the  Sword  and  Bible  ;  what  we  must  call  a 
genuinely  true  one.  Sword  and  Bible  were  borne  before 
him,  without  any  chimera:  were  not  these  the  real  emblems 
of   Puritanism;   its   true  decoration  and  insignia?     It  had 


268  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

used  them  both  in  a  very  real  manner,  and  pretended  to 
stand  by  them  now  !  But  this  poor  Napoleon  mistook  :  he 
believed  too  much  in  the  Dupeability  of  men ;  saw  no  fact 
deeper  in  man  than  Hunger  and  this  !  He  was  mistaken. 
Like  a  man  that  should  build  upon  cloud;  his  house  and 
he  fall  down  in  confused  wreck,  and  depart  out  of  the 
world. 

Alas,  in  all  of  us  this  charlatan-element  exists ;  and  might 
be  developed,  were  the  temptation  strong  enough.  "Lead 
us  not  into  temptation  " !  But  it  is  fatal,  I  sa\*  that  it  be 
developed.  The  thing  into  which  it  enters  as  a  cognizable 
ingredient  is  doomed  to  be  altogether  transitory;  and,  how- 
ever huge  it  may  look,  is  in  itself  small.  Napoleon's  working, 
accordingly,  what  was  it  with  all  the  noise  it  made  ?  A  flash 
as  of  gunpowder  widespread;  a  blazing-up  as  of  dry  heath. 
For  an  hour  the  whole  Universe  seems  wrapt  in  smoke  and 
flame.;  but  only  for  an  hour.  It  goes  out:  the  Universe 
with  its  old  mountains  and  streams,  its  stars  above  and  kind 
soil  beneath,  is  still  there. 

The  Duke  of  Weimar  told  his  friends  always,  To  be  of 
courage;  this  Napoleon  ism  was  wijust,  a  falsehood,  and 
could  not  last.  It  is  true  doctrine.  The  heavier  this  Napo- 
leon trampled  on  the  world,  holding  it  tyrannously  down,  the 
fiercer  would  the  world's  recoil  against  him  be,  one  day. 
Injustice  pays  itself  with  frightful  compound-interest.  I  am 
not  sure  but  he  had  better  have  lost  his  best  park,  of  artillery 
or  had  his  best  regiment  drowned  in  the  sea,  than  shot  thai 
poor  German  Bookseller,  Palm  >  It  was  a  palpable  tyran- 
nous murderous  injustice,  which  no  man,  let  him  paint  an 
inch  thick,  could  make  out  to  be  other.  It  burnt  deep  into 
the  hearts  of  men,  it  and  the  like  of  it;  suppressed  fire 
flashed  in  the  eyes  of  men,  as  they  thought  of  it,  — waiting 


nai'oleon. — Page  263. 


LIBRARY 
•      OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HERO   AS  KING.  269 

their  day!  Which  day  came :  Germany  rose  round  him. — 
What  Napoleon  did  will  in  the  long  run  amount  to  what  he 
did  justly ;  what  Nature  with  her  laws  will  sanction.  To 
what  of  reality  was  in  him ;  to  that  and  nothing  more.  The 
rest  was  all  smoke  and  waste.  La  carriere  ouverte  aux 
talens :  that  great  true  Message,  which  has  yet  to  articulate 
and  fulfil  itself  everywhere,  he  left  in  a  most  inarticulate 
state.  He  was  a  great  ebauche,  a  rude-draught  never  com- 
pleted ;  as  indeed  what  great  man  is  other  ?  Left  in  too  rude 
a  state,  alas ! 

His  notions  of  the  world,  as  he  expresses  them  there  at 
St.  Helena,  are  almost  tragical  to  consider.  He  seems  to 
feel  the  most  unaffected  surprise  that  it  has  all  gone  so; 
that  he  is  flung  out  on  the  rock  here,  and  the  World  is  still 
moving  on  its  axis.  France  is  great,  and  all-great;  and  at 
bottom,  he  is  France.  England  itself,  he  says,  is  by  Nature 
only  an  appendage  of  France ;  "  another  Isle  of  Oleron  to 
France."  So  it  was  by  Nature,  by  Napoleon-Nature ;  and 
yet  look  how  in  fact  —  Here  am  I !  He  cannot  understand 
it:  inconceivable  that  the  reality  has  not  corresponded  to  his 
programme  of  it;  that  France  was  not  all-great,  that  he  was 
not  France.  u  Strong  delusion,"  that  he  should  believe  the 
thing  to  be  which  is  not !  The  compact,  clear-seeing,  deci- 
sive Italian  nature  of  him,  strong,  genuine,  which  he  once 
had,  has  enveloped  itself,  half-dissolved  itself,  in  a  turbid 
atmosphere  of  French  fanfaronade.  The  world  was  not  dis- 
posed to  be  trodden  down  under  foot;  to  be  bound  into 
masses,  and  built  together,  as  he  liked,  for  a  pedestal  to 
France  and  him  :  the  world  had  quite  other  purposes  in  view! 
Napoleon's  astonishment  is  extreme.  But  alas,  what  help 
now?  He  had  gone  that  way  of  his;  and  Nature  also  had 
gone  her  way.  Having  once  parted  with  Reality,  he  tumbles 
helpless  in  Vacuity;  no  rescue  for  him.     He  had  to  sink 


270  LECTURES  ON  HEROES. 

there,  mournfully  as  man  seldom  did;  and  break  his  great 
heart,  and  die,  —  this  poor  Napoleon :  a  great  implement  too 
soon  wasted,  till  it  was  useless :  our  last  Great  Man ! 

Our  last,  in  a  double  sense.  For  here  finally  these  wide 
roamings  of  ours  through  so  many  times  and  places,  in 
search  and  study  of  Heroes,  are  to  terminate.  I  am  sorry 
for  it :  there  was  pleasure  for  me  in  this  business,  if  also 
much  pain.  It  is  a  great  subject,  and  a  most  grave  and 
wide  one,  this  which,  not  to  be  too  grave  about  it,  I  have 
named  Hero-worship.  It  enters  deeply,  as  I  think,  into  the 
secret  of  Mankind's  ways  and  vitalest  interests  in  this  world, 
and  is  well  worth  explaining  at  present.  With  six  months, 
instead  of  six  days,  we  might  have  done  better.  I  promised 
to  break  ground  on  it;  I  know  not  whether  I  have  even 
managed  to  do  that.  I  have  had  to  tear  it  up  in  the  rudest 
manner  in  order  to  get  into  it  at  all.  Often  enough,  with 
these  abrupt  utterances  thrown  out  isolated,  unexplained, 
has  your  tolerance  been  put  to  the  trial.  Tolerance,  patient 
candor,  all-hoping  favor  and  kindness,  which  I  will  not  speak 
of  at  present.  The  accomplished  and  distinguished,  the 
beautiful,  the  wise,  something  of  what  is  best  in  England, 
have  listened  patiently  to  my  rude  words.  With  many  feel- 
ings, I  heartily  thank  you  all;  and  say,  Good  be  with  you 
all! 


SUMMARY. 


LECTURE  /. 


THE    HERO   AS    DIVINITY.      ODIN.      PAGANISM:     SCANDINAVIAN 
MYTHOLOGY. 

HEROES :  Universal  History  consists  essentially  of  their 
united  Biographies.  Religion  not  a  man's  church-creed,  but 
his  practical  belief  about  himself  and  the  Universe  :  Roth  with 
Men  and  Nations  it  is  the  One  fact  about  them  which  creatively 
determines  all  the  rest.  Heathenism:  Christianity:  Modern 
Scepticism.  The  Hero  as  Divinity.  Paganism  a  fact ;  not 
(Quackery,  nor  Allegory:  Not  to  be  pretentiously  "  Explained;" 
to  be  looked  at  as  old  Thought,  and  with  sympathy,  (p.  I.)  — 
Nature  no  more  seems  divine  except  to  the  Prophet  or  Poet, 
because  men  have  ceased  to  think:  To  the  Pagan  Thinker,  as  to 
a  child-man,  all  was  either  godlike  or  God.  Canopus :  Man 
Hero-worship  the  basis  of  Religion,  Loyalty,  Society.  A  Hero 
not  the  "  creature  of  the  time ; "  Hero-worship  indestructible. 
Johnson:  Voltaire.  (8.)  —  Scandinavian  Paganism  the  Religion  of 
our  Fathers.  Iceland,  the  home  of  the  Norse  Poets,  described. 
The  Edda.  The  primary  characteristic  of  Norse  Paganism,  the 
impersonation  of  the  visible  workings  of  Nature.  Jbtuns  and  the 
Gods.  Fire:  Frost:  Thunder:  The  Sun  :  Sea-Tempest.  Myth  us 
of  the  Creation:  The  Life-Tree  Igdrasil.  The  modern  "Machine 
or.  the  Universe."  (17.) — The  Norse  Creed,  as  recorded,  the  sum 

271 


2*]  2  SUMMARY. 

malion  of  several  successive  systems:  Originally  the  shape  given 
to  the  national  thought  by  their  first  "Man  of  Genius."  Odin  • 
He  has  no  history  or  date;  yet  was  no  mere  adjective,  but  a  man 
of  flesh  and  blood.  How  deified.  The  World  of  Nature,  to  every 
man  a  Fantasy  of  Himself.  (23.)  — Odin  the  inventor  of  Runes,  of 
Letters  and  Poetry.  His  reception  as  a  Hero  :  the  pattern  Norse- 
man ;  a  God :  His  shadow  over  the  whole  History  of  his  People. 
(30.)  — The  essence  of  Norse  Paganism,  not  so  much  Morality,  as 
a  sincere  recognition  of  Nature :  Sincerity  better  than  Graceful- 
ness. The  Allegories,  the  after-creations  of  the  Faith.  Main 
practical  Belief :  Hall  of  Odin:  Valkyrs:  Destiny:  Necessity  of 
Valor.  Its  worth :  Their  Sea-Kings,  Woodcutter  Kings,  our  spirit* 
ual  Progenitors.  The  growth  of  Odinism.  (^^.)  —  The  strong  sim- 
plicity of  Norse  lore  quite  unrecognized  by  Gray.  Thor's  veritable 
Norse  rage  :  Balder,  the  white  Sungod.  How  the  old  Norse  heart 
loves  the  Thunder-god,  and  sports  with  him:  Huge  Brobdignag 
genius,  needing  only  to  be  tamed  down,  into  Shakspeares, 
Goethes.  Truth  in  the  Norse  Songs :  This  World  a  show. 
Thor's  Invasion  of  Jotunheim.  The  Ragnarok,  or  Twilight  of  the 
Gods :  The  Old  must  die,  that  the  New  and  Better  may  be  born. 
Thor's  last  appearance.  The  Norse  Creed  a  Consecration  of 
Valor.     It  and  the  whoie  Past  a  possession  of  the  Present.  (3S.) 


LECTURE  II. 


THE    HERO   AS    PROPHET.      MAHOMET 


The  Hero  no  longer  regarded  as  a  God,  but  as  one  god-inspired. 
All  Heroes  primarily  of  the  same  stuff;  differing  according  to 
their  reception.  The  welcome  of  its  Heroes,  the  truest  test  of  an 
epoch.  Odin:  Burns,  (p.  47.) — Mahomet  a  true  Prophet;  not  a 
scheming  Impostor.  A  Great  Man,  and  therefore  first  of  all  a 
sincere  man  :  No  man  to  be  judged  merely  by  his  faults,    David 


SUMMARY.  273 

the  Hebrew  King.  Of  all  acts  for  man  repeiitatice the  most  divine: 
The  deadliest  sin,  a  supercilious  consciousness  of  none.  (49.)  — 
Arabia  described.  The  Arabs  always  a  gifted  people ;  of  wild 
strong  feelings,  and  of  iron  restraint  over  these.  Their  Religios- 
ity :  Their  Star  worship-  Their  Prophets  and  inspired  men ;  from 
Job  downwards  Their  Holy  Places.  Mecca,  its  site,  history  and 
government.  (53.)  —  Mahomet.  His  youth  :  His  fond  Grandfather. 
Had  no  book  learning:  Travels  to  the  Syrian  Fairs;  and  first 
comes  in  contact  with  the  Christian  Religion.  An  altogether 
solid,  brotherly,  genuine  man:  A  good  laugh,  and  a  good  flash  of 
anger  in  him  withal.  (57.)  —  Marries  Kadijah.  Begins  his  Prophet- 
career  at  forty  years  of  age.  Allah  Akbar ;  God  is  great :  Islam  . 
we  must  submit  to  God.  Do  we  not  all  live  in  Islam?  Mahomet, 
"the  Prophet  of  God."  (60.) — The  good  Kadijah  believes  in 
him?  Mahomet's  gratitude.  His  slow  progress :  Among  forty  of 
his  kindred,  young  Ali  alone  joined  him.  His  good  Uncle  expos 
tulates  with  him :  Mahomet,  bursting  into  tears,  persists  in  his 
mission.  The  Hegira.  Propagating  by  the  sword :  First  get  your 
sword  :  A  thing  will  propagate  itself  as  it  can.  Nature  a  just 
umpire.  Mahomet's  Creed  unspeakably  better  than  the  wooden 
idolatries  and  jangling  Syrian  Sects  extirpated  by  it.  (64.)  —  The 
Koran,  the  universal  standard  of  Mahometan  life:  An  imper- 
fectly, badly  written,  but  genuine  book  :  Enthusiastic  extempore 
preaching,  amid  the  hot  haste  of  wrestling  with  flesh-andblood 
and  spiritual  enemies.  Its  direct  poetic  insight.  The  World,  Man, 
human  Compassion;  all  wholly  miraculous  to  Mahomet.  (71.)  — 
His  religion  did  not  succeed  by  4t being  easy:"  None  can.  The 
sensual  part  of  it  not  of  Mahomet's  making.  He  himself,  frugal  ; 
patched  his  own  clothes  ;  proved  a  hero  in  a  rough  actual  trial  of 
twenty-three  years.  Traits  of  his  generosity  and  resignation.  His 
total  freedom  from  cant.  (78.)  —  His  moral  precepts  not  always  of 
the  superfinest  sort ;  yet  is  there  always  a  tendency  to  good  in 
them.  His  Heaven  and  Hell  sensual,  yet  not  altogether  so. 
Infinite  Nature  of  Duty.  The  evd  of  sensuality,  in  the  slavery  to 
pleasant  things,  not  in  the  enjoyment  of  them.     Mahometanism  a 


274  SUMMARY. 

religion  heartily  beliei-cd.  To  the  Arab  Nation  it  was  as  z  birth 
from  darkness  into  light :  Arabia  first  became  alive  by  means  of 
it.  (82.) 


LECTURE  III. 

THE  HERO  AS  POET.    DANTE;   SHAKSPEARE. 

The  Hero  as  Divinity  or  Prophet,  inconsistent  with  the  modern 
progress  of  science  :  The  Hero  Poet,  a  figure  common  to  all  ages. 
All  Heroes  at  bottom  the  same ;  the  different  sphere  constituting 
the  grand  distinction :  Examples.  Varieties  of  aptitude,  (p.  87.) 
—  Poet  and  Prophet  meet  in  Votes :  Their^Gjispel  the  oame>jor 
theBeautiful  and  thg_Good  are  one.  All  men  somewhat  of  poets ; 
and  the  highest  Poets  far  from  perfect.  Prose,  and  Poetry  or 
musical  TJiought.  Song  a  kind  of  inarticulate  unfathomable 
speech:  All  deep  things  are  Song.  The  Hero  as  Divinity,  as 
Prophet,  and  then  only  as  Poet,  no  indication  that  our  estimate  of 
the  Great  Man  is  diminishing :  The  Poet  seems  to  be  losing  caste, 
but  it  is  rather  that  our  notions  of  God  are  rising  higher.  (89.)  — 
Shakspeare  and  Dante,  Saints  of  Poetry.  Dante :  His  history,  in 
his  Book  and  Portrait.  His  scholastic  education,  and  its  fruit  of 
subtlety.  His  miseries :  Love  of  Beatrice :  His  marriage  not  happy. 
A  banished  man :  Will  never  return,  if  to  plead  guilty  be  the  condi- 
tion. His  wanderings :  "  Comeeduro  called  At  the  Court  of  Delia 
Scala.  The  great  soul  of  Dante,  homeless  on  earth,  made  its  home 
more  and  more  in  Eternity.  His  mystic,  unfathomable  Song. 
Death :  Buried  at  Ravenna.  (95  )  —  His  Divina  Commedia  a  Song : 
Go  </«-/enough,  there  is  music  even-where.  The  sincerest  of  Poems.- 
It  has  all  been  as  if  molten,  in  the  hottest  furnace  of  his  soul.  Its 
Intensity,  and  Pictorial  power.  The  three  parts  make  up  the  true 
Unseen  World  of  the  Middle  Ages:  How  the  Christian  Dante 
felt  Good  and  Evil  to  be  the  two  polar  elements  of  this  Creation. 
Paganism  and  Christianism.  (100.)  — Ten  silent  centuries  found  a 


SUMMARY.  275 

voice  in  Dante.  The  thing  that  is  uttered  from  the  inmost  parts 
of  a  man's  soul  differs  altogether  from  what  is  uttered  by  the 
outer.  The  "  uses  "  of  Dante  :  We  will  not  estimate  the  Sun  by 
the  quantity  of  gas  it  saves  us.  Mahomet  and  Dante  contrasted. 
Let  a  man  do  his  work;  the  fruit  of  it  is  the  care  of  Another  than 
he.  (109.)  —  As  Dante  embodies  musically  the  Inner  Life  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  so  does  Shakspeare  embody  the  Outer  Life  which 
grew  therefrom.  The  strange  outbudding  of  English  Existence 
which  we  call  "  Elizabethan  Era."  Shakspeare  the  chief  of  all 
Poets  :  His  calm,  all-seeing  Intellect :  His  marvellous  Portrait- 
painting.  (112.) — The  Poet's  first  gift,  as  it  is  all  men's,  that  he 
have  intellect  enough,  — that  he  be  able  to  see.  Intellect  the  sum- 
mary of  all  human  gifts  :  Human  intellect  and  vulpine  intellect  con- 
trasted. Shakspeare's  instinctive  unconscious  greatness:  His 
works  a  part  of  Nature,  and  partaking  of  her  inexhaustible  depth. 
Shakspeare  greater  than  Dante  ;  in  that  he  not  only  sorrowed,  but 
triumphed  over  his  sorrows.  His  mirthf ulness,  and  genuine  over- 
flowing love  of  laughter.  His  Historical  Plays,  a  kind  of  National 
Epic.  The  Battle  of  Agincourt :  A  noble  Patriotism,  far  other  than 
the  "  indifference  "  sometimes  ascribed  to  him.  His  works,  like  so 
ihany  windows,  through  which  we  see  glimpses  of  the  world  that 
is  in  him.  (115.) — Dante  the  melodious  Priest  of  Middle-Age 
Catholicism :  Out  of  this  Shakspeare  too  there  rises  a  kind  of 
Universal  Psalm,  not  unfit  to  make  itself  heard  among  still  more 
sacred  Psalms.  Shakspeare  an  "  unconscious  Prophet ; "  and 
therein  greater  and  truer  than  Mahomet.  This  poor  Warwick- 
shire peasant  worth  more  to  us  than  a  whole  regiment  of  highest 
Dignitaries:  Indian  Empire,  or  Shakspeare,  —  which?  An  Eng- 
lish King,  whom  no  time  or  chance  can  dethrone :  A  rallying-sign 
and  bond  of  brotherhood  for  all  Saxondom  :  Wheresoever  English 
men  and  women  are,  they  will  say  to  one  another,  "  Yes,  this 
Shakspeare  is  ours  I "  (123.) 


276  SUMMARY. 


LECTURE  IV. 

THE   HERO   AS    PRIEST.      LUTHER;    REFORMATION:    KNOX; 
PURITANISM. 

The  Priest  a  kind  of  Prophet ;  but  more  familiar  as  the  daily 
enlightener  of  daily  life.  A  true  Reformer  he  who  appeals  to 
Heaven's  invisible  justice  against  Earth's  visible  force.  The 
finished  Poet  often  a  symptom  that  his  epoch  itself  has  reached 
perfection,  and  finished.  Alas,  the  battling  Reformer,  too,  is  at 
times  a  needful  and  inevitable  phenomenon  :  Offences  do  accumu- 
late, till  they  become'  insupportable.  Forms  of  Belief,  modes  of 
life,  must  perish ;  yet  the  Good  of  the  Past  survives,  an  everlast- 
ing possession  for  us  all.  (p.  128.) — Idols,  or  visible  recognized 
Symbols,  common  to  all  Religions:  Hateful  only  when  insincere: 
The  property  of  every  Hero,  that  he  come  back  to  sincerity,  to 
reality:  Protestantism  and  "  private  judgment."  No  living  com- 
munion possible  among  men  who  believe  only  in  hearsays.  The 
Hero-Teacher,  who  delivers  men  out  of  darkness  into  light.  Not 
abolition  of  Hero-worship  does  Protestantism  mean ;  but  rather  a 
whole  World  of  Heroes,  of  sincere,  believing  men.  (134.)  —  Luther  ; 
his  obscure,  seemingly  insignificant  birth.  His  youth  schooled  in 
adversity  and  stern  reality.  Becomes  a  Monk.  His  religious 
despair :  Discovers  a  Latin  Bible  :  No  wonder  he  should  venerate 
the  Bible.  He  visits  Rome.  Meets  the  Pope's  fire  by  fire.  At 
the  Diet  of  Worms:  The  greatest  moment  in  the  modern  History 
of  men.  (142.)  —  The  Wars  that  followed  are  not  to  be  charged  to 
the  Reformation.  The  Old  Religion  once  true  :  The  cry  of  "  No 
Popery"  foolish  enough  in  these  days.  Protestantism  not  dead  : 
German  Literature  and  the  French  Revolution  rather  considerable 
signs  of  life!  (151.)  —  How  Luther  held  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Reformation  and  kept  Peace  while  he  lived.  His  written  Works : 
Their  rugged  homely  strength  :  His  dialect  became  the  language 
of  all  writing.     No  mortal  heart  to  be  called  braver ^  ever  lived  in 


SUMMARY.  277 

that  Teutonic  Kindred,  whose  character  is  valor :  Yet  a  most 
gentle  heart  withal,  full  of  pity  and  love,  as  the  truly  valiant  heart 
ever  is :  Traits  of  character  from  his  Table-Talk  :  His  daughter's 
Deathbed:  The  miraculous  in  Nature.  His  love  of  Music.  I  lis 
Portrait.  (153.)  —  Puritanism  the  only  basis  of  Protestantism  that 
ripened  into  a  living  faith :  Defective  enough,  but  genuine.  Its 
fruit  in  the  world.  The  sailing  of  the  Mayflower  from  Delft 
Haven  the  beginning  of  American  Saxondom.  In  the  history 
of  Scotland  properly  but  one  epoch  of  world-interest, — the  Ref- 
ormation by  Knox :  A  "  nation  of  heroes ;  "  a  believing  nation. 
The  Puritanism  of  Scotland  became  that  of  England,  of  New  Eng- 
land. (159.) — Knox  "guilty"  of  being  the  bravest  of  all  Scotch- 
men :  Did  not  seek  the  post  of  Prophet.  At  the  siege  of  St. 
Andrew's  Castle.  Emphatically  a  sincere  man.  A  Galley-slave 
on  the  River  Loire.  An  Old-Hebrew  Prophet,  in  the  guise  of  an 
Edinburgh  Minister  of  the  Sixteenth  Century.  (163.)  —  Knox  and 
Queen  Mary :  "  Who  are  you,  that  presume  to  school  the  nobles 
and  sovereign  of  this  realm?"  —  "Madam,  a  subject  born  within 
the  same."  His  intolerance  —  of  falsehoods  and  knaveries.  Not  a 
mean  acrid  man;  else  he  had  never  been  virtual  President  and 
Sovereign  of  Scotland.  His  unexpected  vein  of  drollery:  A 
cheery  social  man;  practical,  cautious-hopeful,  patient.  His 
"  devout  imagination  "  of  a  Theocracy,  or  Government  of  God. 
Hildebrand  wished  a  Theocracy;  Cromwell  wished  it.  fought  for 
it:  Mahomet  attained  it.  In  one  form  or  other,  it  is  the  one  thing 
to  be  struggled  for.  (166.) 


LECTURE    V. 

THE   HERO    AS    MAN    OF   LETTERS.      JOHNSON,   ROUSSEAU,   BURNS. 

The  Hero  as  Man  of  Letters  altogether  a  product  of  these  new 
ages:  A  Heroic  Soul  in  very  strange  guise.  Literary  men;  gen- 
uine and  spurious.     Fichte's  "Divine  Idea  of  the  World:"  His 


278  SUMMARY. 

notion  of  the  True  Man  of  letters.  Goethe,  the  Pattern  Literary 
Hero.  (p.  171.)  —  The  disorganized  condition  of  Literature,  the 
summary  of  all  other  modern  disorganizations.  The  Writer  of  a 
true  Book  our  true  modern  Preacher.  Miraculous  influence  of 
Books :  The  Hebrew  Bible.  Books  are  now  our  actual  Univer- 
sity, our  Church,  our  Parliament.  With  Books,  Democracy  is 
inevitable.  Thought  the  true  thaumaturgic  influence,  by  which 
man  works  all  things  whatsoever.  (176.)  —  Organization  of  the 
"Literary  Guild:"  Needful  discipline;  "priceless  lessons"  of 
Poverty.  The  Literary  Priesthood,  and  its  importance  to  society. 
Chinese  Literary  Governors.  Fallen  into  strange  times;  and 
strange  things  need  to  be  speculated  upon.  (1S4.)  —  An  age  of 
Scepticism :  The  very  possibility  of  Heroism  formally  abnegated. 
Benthamism  an  eyeless  Heroism.  Scepticism,  Spiritual  Paralysis, 
Insincerity:  Heroes  gone  out;  Quacks  come  in.  Our  brave 
Chatham  himself  lived  the  strangest  mimetic  life  all  along.  Vio- 
lent remedial  revulsions:  Chartisms,  French  Revolutions:  The 
Age  of  Scepticism  passing  away.  Let  each  Man  look  to  the 
mending  of  his  own  Life.  (188.)  — Johnson  one  of  our  Great  Eng- 
lish Souls.  His  miserable  Youth  and  Hypochondria:  Stubborn 
Self-help.  His  loyal  submission  to  what  is  really  higher  than 
himself.  How  he  stood  by  the  old  Formulas :  Not  less  original 
for  that.  Formulas ;  their  Use  and  Abuse.  Johnson's  uncon- 
scious sincerity.  His  Twofold  Gospel,  a  kind  of  Moral  Prudence 
and  clear  Hatred  of  Cant.  His  writings  sincere  and  full  of 
substance.  Architectural  nobleness  of  his  Dictionary.  Bos  well, 
with  all  his  faults,  a  true  hero-worshipper  of  a  true  Hero.  (198.)  — 
Rousseau  a  morbid,  excitable,  spasmodic  man ;  intense  rather  than 
strong.  Had  not  the  invaluable  "talent  of  Silence."  His  Face 
expressive  of  his  character.  His  Egoism :  Hungry  for  the  praises 
of  men.  His  books :  Passionate  appeals,  which  did  once  more 
struggle  towards  Reality:  A  Prophet  to  his  Time;  as  he  could, 
and  as  the  Time  could.  Rosepink,  and  artificial  bedizenment. 
Fretted,  exasperated,  till  the  heart  of  him  went  mad  :  He  could 
be  cooped,  starving,  into  garrets ;  laughed  at  as  a  maniac ;  but  he 


SUMMARY.  279 

could  not  be  hindered  from  setting  the  world  on  fire.  (205.)  — 
Burns  a  genuine  Hero,  in  a  withered,  unbelieving,  secondhand 
Century.  The  largest  soul  of  all  the  British  lands,  came  among 
us  in  the  shape  of  a  hard-handed  Scottish  Peasant.  His  heroic 
Father  and  Mother,  and  their  sore  struggle  through  life.  His 
rough  untutored  dialect :  Affectionate  joyousness.  His  writings  a 
poor  fragment  of  him.  His  conversational  gifts  :  High  duchesses 
and  low  hostlers  alike  fascinated  by  him.  (209.)  —  Resemblance 
between  Burns  and  Mirabeau.  Official  Superiors :  The  greatest 
"thinking-faculty"  in  this  land  superciliously  dispensed  with. 
Hero-worship  under  strange  conditions.  The  notablest  phasis  of 
Burns's  history  his  visit  to  Edinburgh.  For  one  man  who  can 
stand  prosperity,  there  are  a  hundred  that  will  stand  adversity. 
Literary  Lionism.  (212.) 


LECTURE  IV. 

THE   HERO   AS   KING.      CROMWELL,   NAPOLEON  :    MODERN 
REVOLUTIONISM. 

The  King  the  most  important  of  Great  Men  ;  the  summary  of 
all  the  various  figures  of  Heroism.  To  enthrone  the  Ablest  Man, 
the  true  business  of  all  Social  procedure:  the  Ideal  of  Constitu- 
tions. Tolerable  and  intolerable  approximations.  Divine  Rights 
and  Diabolic  Wrongs,  (p.  217.) — The  world's  sad  predicament; 
that  of  having  its  Able-Man  to  seek,  and  not  knowing  in  what 
manner  to  proceed  about  it.  The  era  of  Modern  Revolutionism 
dates  from  Luther.  The  French  Revolution  no  mere  act  of  Gen- 
eral Insanity:  Truth  clad  in  hell-fire;  the  Trump  of  Doom  to 
Plausibilities  and  empty  Routine.  The  cry  of  "  Liberty  and 
Equality"  at  bottom  the  repudiation  of  sham  Heroes.  Hero- 
worship  exists  forever  and  everywhere ;  from  divine  adoration 
down  to  the  common  courtesies  of  man  and  man :  The  soul  of 
Order,  to  which  all  things,  Revolutions  included,  work.     Some 


2  SO  SUMMARY. 

Cromwell  or  Napoleon  the  necessary  finish  of  a  Sansculottism.  The 
manner  in  which  Kings  were  made,  and  Kingship  itself  first  took 
rise.  (221.)  —  Puritanism  a  section  of  the  universal  war  of  Belief 
against  Make-believe.  Laud  a  weak  ill-starred  Pedant :  in  his  spas- 
modic vehemence  heeding  no  voice  of  prudence,  no  cry  of  pity. 
Universal  necessity  for  true  Forms  :  How  to  distinguish  between 
True  and  False.  The  nakedest  Reality  preferable  to  any  empty  Sem- 
blance, however  dignified.  (226.)  — The  work  of  the  Puritans.  The 
Sceptical  Eighteenth  century,  and  its  constitutional  estimate  of 
Cromwell  and  his  associates.  No  wish  to  disparage  such  charac- 
ters as  Hampden,  Eliot,  Pym ;  a  most  constitutional,  unblamable, 
dignified  set  of  men.  The  rugged  outcast  Cromwell,  the  man  of 
them  all  in  whom  one  still  finds  human  stuff.  The  One  thing 
worth  revolting  for.  (229.) — Cromwell's  "hypocrisy"  an  impos- 
sible theory.  His  pious  Life  as  a  Farmer  until  forty  years  of  age. 
His  public  successes  honest  successes  of  a  brave  man.  His  par- 
ticipation in  the  King's  death  no  ground  of  condemnation.  His 
eye  for  facts  no  hypocrite's  gift.  His  Ironsides  the  embodiment 
of  this  insight  of  his.  (234.)  —  Know  the  men  that  may  be  trusted  : 
Alas,  this  is  yet,  in  these  days,  very  far  from  us.  Cromwell's 
hypochondria:  His  reputed  confusion  of  speech:  His  habit  of 
prayer.  His  speeches  unpremeditated  and  full  of  meaning.  His 
reticences  ;  called  "  lying  "  and  "  dissimulation : "  Not  one  false- 
hood proved  against  him.  (240.)  —  Foolish  charge  of  "  ambition." 
The  great  Empire  of  Silence  :  Noble  silent  men,  scattered  here 
and  there,  each  in  his  department ;  silently  thinking,  silently  hop- 
ing, silently  working.  Two  kinds  of  ambition  ;  one  wholly  blam- 
able,  the  other  laudable,  inevitable :  How  it  actually  was  with 
Cromwell.  (245.)  —  Hume's  Fanatic-Hypocrite  theory.  How  indis- 
pensable everywhere  a  King  is,  in  all  movements  of  men.  Crom- 
well, as  King  of  Puritanism,  of  England.  Constitutional  palaver : 
Dismissal  of  the  Rump  Parliament.  Cromwell's  Parliaments  and 
Protectorship  :  Parliaments  having  failed,  there  remained  nothing 
for  him  but  the  way  of  Despotism.  His  closing  days  :  His  poor 
•Id  Mother.     It  was  not  to  men's  judgments  that  he  appealed ; 


SUMMARY.  28l 

nor  have  men  judged  him  very  well.  (252.)  —  The  French  Revolu- 
tion, the  "  third  act  "  of  Protestantism.  Napoleon,  infected  with 
the  quackeries  of  his  age  :  Had  a  kind  of  sincerity,  —  an  instinct 
towards  the  practical.  His  faith,  —  "The  Tools  to  him  that  can 
handle  them,"  the  whole  truth  of  Democracy.  His  heart-hatred 
of  Anarchy.  Finally,  his  quackeries  got  the  upper  hand :  He 
would  found  a  "  Dynasty  :  "  Believed  wholly  in  the  dupeability  of 
Men.  This  Napoleonism  was  unjust,  a  falsehood,  and  could  not 
last.  (263.) 


INDEX. 


Agincourt,  Shakspeare's  battle  of,  122. 

Ali,  young,  Mahomet's  kinsman  and 
convert,  65. 

Allegory,  the  sportful  shadow  of  earnest 
Faith,  6,  34. 

Ambition,  foolish  charge  of,  246;  lauda- 
ble ambition,  249. 

Arabia  and  the  Arabs,  53. 

Balder,  the  white  Sungod,  20,  38. 

Belief,  the  true  god-announcing  miracle, 
64,  86,  161,  193;  war  of,  226.  See 
Religion,  Scepticism. 

Benthamism,  85,  191. 

Books,  miraculous  influence  of,  177, 183; 
our  modern  University,  Church  and 
Parliament,  180. 

Boswell,  203. 

Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress,  7. 

Burns,  209;  his  birth  and  humble  heroic 
parents,  209;  rustic  dialect,  210;  the 
most  gifted  British  soul  of  his  century, 
211;  resemblance  to  Mirabeau,  212; 
his  sincerity,  214;  his  visit  to  Edin- 
burgh, Lion-hunted  to  death,  215. 

Caabah,  the,  with  its  Black  Stone  and 

sacred  Well,  55. 
Canopus,  worship  of,  10. 
Charles    I.   fatally   incapable   of   being 

dealt  with,  237. 
China,  literary  governors  of,  187. 


Church.     See  Books. 

Cromwell,  230;  his  hypochondria,  235, 
241;  early  marriage  and  conversion; 
a  quiet  farmer,  235;  his  Ironsides,  238; 
his  Speeches,  243,  260;  his  "  ambi- 
tion," and  the  like,  245;  dismisses  the 
Rump  Parliament,  254,  Protectorship 
and  Parliamentary  Futilities,  258;  his 
last  days  and  closing  sorrows,  262. 

Dante,  95;  biography  in  his  Book  and 
Portrait,  96;  his  birth,  education,  and 
earthly  career,  96, 97 ;  love  for  Beatrice, 
unhappy  marriage,  banishment,  97; 
uncourtier-like  ways,  99;  death,  100; 
his  Divina  Commedia  genuinely  a 
song,  101 ;  the  Unseen  World,  as  fig- 
ured in  the  Christianity  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  107;  "  uses"  of  Dante,  in. 

David,  fhe  Hebrew  King,  52. 

Divine  Right  of  Kings,  219. 

Duty,  34,  71;  infinite  nature  of,  84; 
sceptical  spiritual  paralysis,  198. 

Edda,  the  Scandinavian,  18. 
Eighteenth  Century,  the  sceptical,  188- 

197,  230. 
Elizabethan  Era,  113. 

Faults,  his,  not  the  criterion  of  any  man 

52- 
Fichte's  theory  of  literary  men,  173. 
283 


284 


IXDEX. 


Fire,  miraculous  nature  of,  19. 
Forms,  necessity  for,  228. 
Frost.     See  Fire. 

Goethe's  "characters,"   117;   notablest 

of  literary  men,  175. 
Graphic,  secret  of  being,  103. 
Gray's  misconception  of  Norse  lore,  38. 

Hampden,  230. 

Heroes,  Universal  History  the  united 
biographies  of,  1,  32;  how  "little 
critics"  account  for  great  men,  15; 
all  Heroes  fundamentally  of  the  same 
stuff,  31,  48,  88,  128,  171,  2ii ;  Hero- 
ism possible  to  all,  141,  161;  Intellect 
the  primary  outfit,  117;  no  man  a  hero 
to  a  valet-so\A,  204,  230,  240. 

Hero-worship  the  tap-root  of  all  Reli- 
gion, 12-17,  48;  perennial  in  man,  15, 
94,  141,  225. 

Hutchinson  and  Cromwell,  230,  261. 

Iceland,  the  home  of  Norse  Poets,  18. 
Idolatry,  134;  criminal  only  when  insin- 
cere, 136. 
Igdrasil,  the  Life-Tree,  22,  113. 
Intellect,  the  summary  of  man's  gifts, 


Islam,  62. 

Job,  the  Book  of,  54. 

Johnson's  difficulties,  poverty,  hypo- 
chondria, 198;  rude  self-help;  stands 
genuinely  by  the  old  formulas,  199: 
his  noble  unconscious  sincerity,  201; 
twofold  Gospel,  of  Prudence  and 
hatred  of  Cant,  202;  his  Dictionary, 
203;  the  brave  old  Samuel,  204,  250. 

Jotuns,  19,  39. 

Kadijah,  the  good,  Mahomet's  first  Wife, 
60,64. 


King,  the,  a  summary  of  all  the  various 
figures  of  Heroism,  217;  indispensa- 
ble in  all  movements  of  men.  253. 

Knox's  influence  on  Scotland,  161;  the 
bravest  of  Scotchmen,  163;  his  unas- 
suming career;  is  sent  to  the  French 
Galleys,  164 ;  his  colloquies  with  Queen 
Mary,  166;  vein  of  drollery;  a  brother 
to  high  and  to  low;  his  death,  168, 169 

Koran,  the,  71. 

Lamaism,  Grand,  5. 

Leo  X.,  the  elegant  Pagan  Pope,  147. 

Liberty  and  Equality,  141,  224. 

Literary  men,  171;  in  China,  187. 

Literature,  chaotic  condition  of,  176; 
not  our  heaviest  evil,  189. 

Luther's  birth  and  parentage,  142 ;  hard- 
ship and  rigorous  necessity;  death  of 
Alexis;  becomes  monk,  143,  144;  his 
religious  despair;  finds  a  Bible;  de- 
liverance from  darkness,  144,  145; 
Rome,  Tetzel,  147;  burns  the  Pope's 
Bull,  148:  at  the  Diet  of  Worms,  149; 
King  of  the  Reformation,  153;  "  Duke 
Georges  nine  days  running,"  156;  his 
lirde  daughter's  deathbed;  his  solitary 
Patmos,  157;  his  Portrait,  158. 

Mahomet's  birth,  boyhood,  and  youth, 
57;  marries  Kadijah,  60;  quiet,  un- 
ambitious life,  60;  divine  commission, 
62;  the  good  Kadijah  believes  him; 
Seid:  young  Ali,  64,  65:  offences  and 
sore  struggles,  66;  flight  from  Mecca; 
being  driven  to  take  the  sword,  he 
uses  it,  67, 68;  the  Koran,  71 ;  a  verita- 
ble Hero,  80:  Seid's  death,  80;  Free- 
dom from  Cant,  80;  the  infinite  nature 
of  Duty,  84. 

Mary,  Queen,  and  Knox,  165. 

Mayflower,  sailing  of  the,  159. 

Mecca,  56. 


INDEX. 


285 


Middle  Ages,  represented  by  Dante  and 

Shakspeare,  108,  112. 
Montrose,  the  Hero-Cavalier,  254. 
Musical,  all  deep  things,  93. 

Napoleon,  a  portentous  mixture  of 
Quack  and  Hero,  264;  his  instinct  for 
the  practical,  265;  his  democratic 
faith,  and  heart-hatred  for  anarchy, 
265,  266;  apostatized  from  his  old  faith 
in  facts,  and  took  to  believing  in  Sem- 
blances, 267;  this  Napoleonism  was 
unjust,  and  could  not  last,  268. 

Nature,  all  one  great  Miracle,  8,  76,  157; 
a  righteous  umpire,  69. 

Novalis,  on  Man,  n;  Belief,  64;  Shak- 
speare, 120. 

Odin,  the  first  Norse  "  man  of  genius," 
23;  historic  rumors  and  guesses,  24; 
how  he  came  to  be  deified,  27;  in- 
vented "  runes,"  30;  Hero,  Prophet, 
God,  31. 

Olaf,  King,  and  Thor,  44. 

Original  man  the  sincere  man,  51,  140. 

Paganism,  Scandinavian,  4:  not  mere 
Allegory,  6;  Nature-worship,  8,  33; 
Hero-worship,  12;  creed  of  our  fathers, 
17,  40,  43;  Impersonation  of  the  visi- 
ble workings  of  Nature,  19:  contrasted 
with  Greek  Paganism,  21:  the  first 
Norse  Thinker,  23;  main  practical 
Belief;  indispensable  to  be  brave,  34, 
35;  hearty,  homely,  rugged  Mythol- 
ogy; Balder,  Thor,  33,  Consecration 
of  Valor,  45. 

Parliaments,  superseded  by  Books,  182; 
Cromwell's  Parliaments,  255. 

Past,  the  whole,  the  possession  of  the 
Present,  45. 

Poet,  the,  and  Prophet,  89,  111,  123. 

Poetry  and  Prose,  distinction  of,  92, 101. 


Popery,  152. 

Poverty,  advantage,  of,  143. 

Priest,  the  true,  a  kind  of  Prophet,  128. 

Printing,  consequences  of,  182. 

Private  judgment,  138. 

Progress  of  the  Species,  131. 

Prose.     See  Poetry. 

Protestantism,  the  root  of  Modern 
European  History,  137;  not  dead  yet, 
152;  its  living  fruit,  159,  221. 

Purgatory,  noble  Catholic  conception  of, 
106. 

Puritanism,  founded  by  Knox,  159;  true 
beginning  of  America,  160;  the  one 
epoch  of  Scotland,  161 ;  Theocracy, 
169;  Puritanism  in  England,  226,  228, 
250. 

Quackery,  originates  nothing,  5,  49:  age 
of,  194;  Quacks  and  Dupes,  239,  240. 

Ragnarok,  43. 

Reformer,  the  true,  128. 

Religion,  a  man's,  the  chief  fact  with  re- 
gard to  him,  2;  based  on  Hero-wor- 
ship, 12;  propagating  by  the  sword, 
68;  cannot  succeed  by  being  "  easy," 
78. 

Revolution,  218;  the  French,  221,  263. 
I  Richter,  10. 

Right  and  Wrong,  84,  108. 

Rousseau,  not  a  strong  man ;  his  Portrait ; 
egoism,  205,  206;  his  passionate  ap- 
peals, 207;  his  Books,  like  himself, 
unhealthy;  the  Evangelist  of  the 
French  Revolution,  207,  208. 

Scepticism,   a   spiritual   paralysis,  189- 

195,  230. 
Scotland  awakened  into  life  by  Knox, 

161. 
Secret,  the  open,  89. 
Seid,  Mahomet's  slave  and  friend,  65,  80 


286 


INDEX. 


Shakspeare  and  the  Elizabethan  Era, 
113;  his  all-sufficing  intellect,  115, 118; 
his  Characters,  117;  his  Dramas,  a 
part  of  Nature  herself,  120;  his  joyful 
tranquillity,  and  overflowing  love  of 
laughter,  121 ;  his  hearty  Patriotism, 
122;  glimpses  of  the  world  that  was 
in  him,  163;  a  heaven-sent  Light- 
Bringer,  124;  a  King  of  Saxondom, 
126. 

Shekinah,  Man  the  true,  n. 

Silence,  the  great  empire  of,  112, 
248. 

Sincerity,  better  than  gracefulness,  34; 
the  first  characteristic  of  heroism  and 
originality,  50,  60,  140,  141,  173. 

Theocracy,   a,  striven  for  by  all   true 

Reformers,  170,  251. 
Oior  and  his  adventures,  20,  38-43 ;  his 

last  appearance,  44. 


Thought,   miraculous   influence   of,  24, 

31,  183;  musical  Thought,  92. 
Thunder.     See  Thor. 
Time,  the  great  mystery  of,  9. 
Tolerance,  true  and  false,  154,  166. 
Turenne,  88. 

Universities,  178. 

Valor,  the  basis  of  all  virtue,  35,  39; 

Norse  consecration  of,  45;    Christian 

valor,  133. 
Voltaire- worship,  15. 

Wish,  the  Norse  god,  20;  enlarged  intc 

a  heaven  by  Mahomet,  85. 
Worms,  Luther  at,  149. 
Worship,  transcendent  wonder,  10.     Se 

Hero-worship. 

Zemzem,  the  sacred  Well,  «^ 


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